Cap North's booze outlets: expert

Dr Peter Rice, chair of the Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, was in Whangarei to talk about alcohol-related harm and how to reduce it. Photo / John Stone

A cap on liquor outlets and a minimum price for booze are immediate things local and central government can do to address Northland - and New Zealand's - appalling alcohol-related harm figures, a UK expert says.

Dr Peter Rice, chair of the Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, is in the country to talk to health professionals about how to reduce harm from alcohol after setting up effective programmes in the UK.

Dr Rice was in Whangarei last week and said there was a clear link between Northland's high rate of off-licences and its high alcohol harm statistics.

Northland has nearly twice as many booze outlets per head of population as the North Island average with 15.2 off-licences for every 10,000 of population; nearly twice that of the North Island (8.2).

Statistics New Zealand said alcohol was a factor in more than a third of arrests in Northland last year and 45 per cent of the Whangarei Hospital emergency department injury-related presentations involved alcohol having been consumed in the 12 hours before admission.

The Whangarei and Far North councils are working out new Local Alcohol Policies (LAPs) after the Government introduced new liquor laws last year.

But Dr Rice said it was not rocket science that the number of liquor outlets and availability of booze was related to harm from alcohol.

He said councils should implement a cap on liquor outlets while the Government should introduce a minimum price on alcohol to counter booze price wars as liquor outlets competed for customers.

Dr Rice said both measures were recommended by the NZ Law Commission in its report to the Government ahead of the new laws, but had been ignored.

"It's very clear from the evidence and in fact is logical, that the greater number of [alcohol] outlets the greater the harm caused [by alcohol] in those communities," he said.

"The price of alcohol, particularly the price of the cheapest alcohol, is also a clear determinant in that [harm]."

The Law Commissions' review of the regulatory framework for alcohol sale and supply - Alcohol in our lives - Curbing the Harm - made a series of recommendations for reducing alcohol harm, but most were ignored by government.

Dr Rice said it seemed politics, rather than what was in the best interest of the public, was driving alcohol laws here.

"Sadly politics comes into alcohol policy very quickly. The Law Commission made some very good recommendations, and ones that have been introduced by many other countries around the world, and they will help, if they are committed to. The World Health Organisation has come up with the best practice [for alcohol harm reduction] and they are very similar to your Law Commission recommendations."

He said New Zealanders also needed to change their attitude towards alcohol, especially around drink-driving.

Dr Rice said New Zealand had a high rate of drunk driving convictions and it seemed as if many people's attitudes towards those caught was "hard luck".

"For all the troubles with alcohol in the UK - and there are some very high rates of harm in some areas - drink-driving is not a big issue, because people just don't do it and people don't accept others doing it," he said.

"The [drink-driving] enforcement is very strict and the penalties are fairly substantial and there's a real public disdain with drink-driving considered really shameful in the UK."