Alcohol, the drug of the nation

Alcohol really does play a significant role in Australia’s culture. No more prominently than on this very day, Melbourne Cup day: the race that stops a nation, or more accurately, the race that give Australians an excuse to hit the turps during a workday.

What prompted the following examination of our boozy marriage with fermented plant matter was a story I heard this morning on the ABC.

“The country's peak alcohol-awareness group is using the Melbourne Cup to release its election policy, saying the day is proof Australians drink too much.”

I think it’s a little unfair to use today as the measuring point for Australia’s drinking habits. That’s like collecting stats on Valentine's Day and concluding that Australian’s spend $146 Billion annually on flowers and plush toy bears. But the fact remains; we like a drink.

In the world comparisons though we’re nothing to write home about. Up there in the world rankings but by no means in the heavy weight division. Topping the list is Luxembourg, followed by Ireland and Hungary. Those drunkards beat us by almost 50% at times. Also interesting is that our consumption rate is almost identical now to what it was back in the 1960’s.

But when you look at alcohol as just another drug that gets people high, it really is staggering how integrated it is into our society. From where I’m sitting now there are five Bottle Shops within walking distance. Admittedly this is not a fair representation because I moved into this unit based primarily on that vary statistic, but basically, no matter where you live in Australia you don’t have to stagger too far to get soused.

In the common use of the phrase, shut up linguistic Nazis, it begs the question, why is alcohol so accepted when we so vigorously oppose other forms of intoxicaticants? Alcohol is a dangerous and addictive mind altering substance that can causes many social, physical and mental harms. The only difference between it and the many drugs that we systematically vilify is that we’re used to grog and are really quite good at using it.

You might think that I am advocating the legalisation of illegal drugs here, but I’m not. I’m not because we’re not used to those drugs and flooding a society with a drug it’s not used to will most certainly lead to widespread problems. What I do believe is that if you included the social and cultural history that comes along with our alcohol use, you could substitute it with any drug you liked and achieve similar results.

That’s the difference. If a society has a well establish cultural history with a substance then it self regulates the drug’s use and limits the harm. The effects of introducing a substance into a society that has little to no experience with its use can be seen in the problems that Heroin and Ice are causing in our society, and the destruction that Alcohol is causing in Aboriginal Australia.

This drug or that drug is not inherent evil itself, it’s just that we are shit at taking it. For all but the most recently synthesised drugs out there I bet you could find a society somewhere around the world that has been using it for centuries without problems any greater than the ones we have with alcohol.

This is why the so-called ‘tough on drugs’ campaigns inevitably fail. The particular drug de jour is demonised as being the nastiest we have ever faced and is accompanied by all manner of scary facts telling you that one hit/sniff/touch of it will destroy your brain and kill your sister. This, combined with the verifiable fact that most kids our there will try pretty much any drug they can get their hands on, leads to ignorant users trying, and dying from, a drug no more dangerous than good old alcohol.

This is why I like the policy the Greens have developed regarding illegal drugs. While not advocating the legalisation of said drugs, they push a policy of harm minimisation.

“a harm minimisation approach is the best way to reduce the negative effects of drug use and drug regulation.”

“information and education programs should be available to enable informed debate about the effects of all drugs, including prescription, non-prescription, legal and illegal drugs.”

I think this recognises the point I was making above that there is nothing inherently evil about any particular drug; it’s just that we don’t have the knowledge or social base to use it safely. A rational and informed approach to drug use, including alcohol, is the only hope we have of reducing the harm they cause to users and the wider community.

Cheers.