Liquor industry should stop feigning concern for public health and safety

THE article by the CEO of the Beer Association of South Africa, Charlene Louw, titled Minimum Pricing on Alcohol: A risky shortcut South Africa can’t afford, is a veiled admission that the business model of the liquor industry — producers and retailers — relies heavily on plying poor consumers with cheap alcohol. The consequence is an alcohol-related death rate in poorer communities that is 4½ times higher than wealthier ones.

- DAVID HARRISON ZIMASA MPEMNYAMA

Louw argues that minimum unit pricing (MUP) will hurt the poor. Truth is that the poor are already hurt — very badly - by the very industry now saying it has their interests at heart. Louw maintains that “the impact of MUP on small businesses, SMME brewers and township retailers could be catastrophic” Well, only if those businesses are instruments of public harm. If they are not — if they sell alcohol at a price that does not encourage excessive consumption — then they have nothing to fear, as their current prices would already be higher than any proposed minimum price.

If they sell liquor very cheaply, they are incentivising heavy drinking which causes public harm, and any economic benefit from those sales is far outweighed by the economic costs associated with injury, traffic crashes, productivity losses and gender-based violence (GBV). These harms are acutely felt in poorer communities where clinics are overcrowded and underfunded, where schools and churches are surrounded by taverns, and recreational facilities are few and far between.

The liquor industry is using the same scaremongering playbook that its counterparts in other countries have used to try and prevent the implementation of MUP. For this reason, it is instructive to examine what happened after its introduction. In all countries, including Scotland and Wales, Australia and Russia, the prevalence of heavy drinking declined, with positive health benefits, especially for poorer consumers. The impact on hospital casualties was immediate, with acute alcohol-related admissions declining by 2-9%.