I have lifted this useful graph showing UK alcohol consumption per head from a very thought provoking piece by Mark Easton about the drinking epidemic that grips us now.
I cant help but note that it confirms my feeling that the drop in alcohol consumption in the middle years of the C20th coincided with, or was replaced by, the smoking epidemic – drinking began to rise again after the news about the link between smoking & lung cancer began to be publicly known in the late 1950s.
I am not suggesting that it was that simple – there are clearly many other factors in play, not least alcohol's ease of availability, social acceptability together with the liberation of women which has given them more disposable income of their own & more latitude in the way they behave in public.
Then there is the question of relative price; the rise in prices of cigarettes is at least an order of magnitude greater than the rise in the price of alcohol.
Which brings into question the role of government policy in all this. Does it have any effect or does it just follow behind fashion & public opinion, pushing on the open door of public acceptability?
Consumption of illegal drugs has grown despite the very expensive war being waged against them.
One of the odder effects of the recent anti-smoking legislation is the sight of NO SMOKING signs in shops which had generally speaking not felt the need to display them for years – people had long since accepted that it was just not done. And despite grumbling, there has been little real attempt to defy the ban.
I suspect that the graph conceals all sorts of changes in the pattern of who drinks what when & where. The continuing popularity of spirits comes as a bit of a surprise to me – it is now so rare to be offered a glass when you visit anyone’s house.
And looking at the graph comparing liver disease in the UK & Mediterranean countries, one is tempted to conclude that wine must be the real culprit.
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