Alcohol consumption down 24%

The latest data from Stats NZ on how much alcohol was available for consumption, per adult, shows it has declined again – for the ninth year in a row.

This is a huge decline. 24% since 2011. Overall people are drinking less – a lot less. This will be a mixture of people drinking lower alcohol products, less frequent drinking, and fewer people drinking.

This data should have huge ramifications for public health campaigns around alcohol. Broadly one can adopt measures to overall restrict the availability of alcohol (impacting all drinkers) or adopt measures to target problem drinkers.

A 24% reduction in overall alcohol (available for) consumption shows that the focus should be on problem drinkers, not all drinkers. Overall more people are drinking responsibly and less. We shouldn’t be making it illegal to buy a bottle off wine with your groceries if doing a late night shop. We should be using alcohol interlocks on cars more, cracking down on under age sales etc.

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