Liquor advertising ought to be banned, Western Cape social development minister Patricia de Lille said on Friday.
Opening a Cape Town summit on substance abuse, she said government programmes to educate people on alcohol abuse would not achieve much “for as long as the liquor industry is the largest conveyer of information on alcohol to the public”.
“Having seen the impact of alcohol abuse on our communities, if I had my way I would ban all alcohol advertising to level the playing fields,” she said.
In terms of a new by-law, from January the new drinking hours for Cape Town pubs, clubs, restaurants and hotels would be 11.00am to 2.00am, instead of the current 10.00am start, with an option to continue to 4.00am.
For liquor stores and supermarkets, the liquor trading hours would be 9.00am to 6.00pm. Currently the hours were 8.00am to 8.00pm. The announcement of the new by-laws caused an outcry in the city.
Drinking capital
However De Lille said the Western Cape was the “drinking capital” of South Africa, as it had the highest number of heavy drinkers and the highest proportion of binge drinkers.
South Africa itself was among the top three heaviest-drinking nations in the world.
The alcohol industry takes a toll on South Africa’s economy and has grim results in both social and health consequences.
The Mail & Guardian has previously reported that if alcohol were to be synthesised in a lab today it would be a schedule five drug, according to Dr Cathy Ward, a clinical-community psychologist whose work focuses on crime and violence and their associated problems.
Ward said the cost of alcohol to the economy was well over R1-billion and the figure didn’t include the money spent on research and prevention, or absenteeism of employees.
“The shortfall is closer to R5-billion,” she said.
Gerard Boyce, a full-time PhD student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), said that 99% of the government’s expenses related to alcohol were for treatment of health consequences. “It is a reactive approach we are adapting,” he said.
“The benefits are short term while the costs to the community are high. The costs are not quantified but they are there.”
Drinking to intoxication
Statistics showed that 50% of men and 80% of women in South Africa did not drink. “It’s not the fact that we are drinking, it is how we are drinking,” Ward said. “We are drinking to intoxication.”
One of the leading causes of child mistreatment could be attributed to substance abuse, and alcohol was the third leading risk factor for death, disability and injury in South Africa.
“We are binge drinking and 39% of the damage is interpersonal violence,” she said.
Samukelisiwe Coka, head of the Inkanyezi Foundation in Cape Town which seeks to empower South Africans through information sharing, noted the huge role unlicensed taverns, or shebeens, played in alcohol consumption and abuse.
Ward said the solution was not to close shebeens down, but to shift the emphasis to safer drinking, such as serving food and soft drinks and to roll out programmes to handle inebriated patrons.
Ward admitted that regulating trading hours may result in a loss of income for shebeens, but it would ultimately result in a safer community.
Coka said: “Civil society has a role to play but unfortunately they are all silent. Grassroots societies are not yet issue orientated. It doesn’t affect them, yet it is next door.”
“How can we continue to turn a blind eye to outlets which are linked with homicide and crime? We all know ‘so and so’s’ child was murdered there yet no one talks to the police. Does it have to be your child that is killed before you will speak?”
“I do think policy can help in educating,” Ward said. “But it is certainly not the only thing. Alcohol, ‘the drug’, is the problem.” — Sapa and the M&G