Hon Jim Anderton

Member of Parliament for Wigram
Progressive Leader

08 October 2009 Media Statement

Alcohol abuse more serious than methamphetamine

The abuse of alcohol is by far and away the most serious drug abuse we face in New Zealand, the former Associate Minister of Health in charge of the government’s drug policy, Jim Anderton said today.

“It is more serious than the abuse of methamphetamine, even though it is a deadly serious and unacceptable drug.

“The Prime Minister and his government’s first priority to prevent drug abuse in New Zealand is to take up the challenge posed by incidents of heavy drinking, which is now deeply imbedded in our culture, across all ages.

“The economic costs, the health costs, the costs to our justice and corrections systems and lost time off work as well as road deaths and serious injuries are calculated by reputable economists to cost New Zealand between two to three billion dollars a year,” Jim Anderton said.

“The National-led government has announced today that it is taking cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine off our pharmacy counters. This means that those acting illegally have succeeded in removing our most effective cold and flu treatments while the majority of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine is illegally imported across our borders and not sold over pharmacy counters.

“Simon Power’s statement to the Hospitality Association, as the Minister of Justice and Commerce last Wednesday, that “I tend to view liquor law reform through a wide angle lens” does not fill me with confidence that the Law Commission’s recent “Alcohol in our Lives” Discussion Document will bring about the liquor law reform that New Zealand needs.

“The easy availability of alcohol, the lowering of the drinking age, and the influence of the alcohol industry on alcohol-control policy has turned our drinking culture into a pathological problem.

“The police know that this is an urgent issue. Between half and three-quarters of all police work is associated in some way with alcohol abuse.

“Sixty per cent of people arrested by the police are under the influence of alcohol at the time they commit the offence for which they are arrested. Alcohol abuse affects the community and people other than the drinker; forty per cent of all deaths and almost half of all other injuries from alcohol-related car crashes impact on those who have not been drinking at all.

”I call on the government to get serious about alcohol abuse.

“Reduce the availability of alcohol because research around the world has shown that there is a direct link between the availability of alcohol and the level of harm caused by alcohol. Increase the minimum age for buying alcohol to twenty years old; help communities reduce the proliferation of liquor retailers; and reduce the advertising of alcohol especially at sporting events,” Jim Anderton said today in Timaru

Jim Anderson is chairing a meeting tonight in Tïmaru: "Ten things the alcohol industry won't tell you about alcohol”. This meeting is one in a series of thirty eight being held around New Zealand, organised by Alcohol Action, with the presentation by Dr Doug Sellman, Director of the National Addiction Centre, and Professor of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine at the University of Otago.

ENDS

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