There is an air of déjà vu to the draft Liquor Amendment Bill issued by the Department of Trade and Industry earlier in October, with a request for public comment before October 30.
The bill contains almost all of the offensive provisions of the 2015 draft liquor policy document, leaving observers in little doubt that the department never intended to incorporate feedback elicited through that engagement. The draft has retained pretty much the same regulations relating to raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21; restrictions on liquor advertising and on the location of liquor outlets; mandatory black ownership and the vicarious liability of licensees for crimes committed by intoxicated individuals.
It is a draconian piece of work that aims to constrain the liquor trade with repressive legislation, rather than to achieve happier outcomes through education and better policing of existing regulations. It is based on a set of assumptions – many of which have little foundation in fact – that regard prohibitionism as the best way to deal with the consequences of the sale and distribution of alcohol.
The idea of raising the legal drinking age is not new, but it is now given moral impetus by research that suggests that the human brain is particularly vulnerable to damage that may be caused by binge drinking, especially up to the age of 25.
Binge drinking — irrespective of the age of the consumer — should be managed by education and policing. This is how the authorities are supposed to deal with suburban drag racing — not by raising the legal driving age.
Experience elsewhere has shown only failure in the elevation of the legal drinking age. The US raised it in the mid-1980s in an endeavour to reduce road carnage associated with over-the-limit teenagers behind the wheel of a car. But, the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry revealed that in the US, binge drinking among college-age males remains at pre-1980 levels; that among noncollege women, it increased 20%; and that among college women, it has increased 40%. This is a measure of the futility of the legislation, despite more efficient policing in the US.
The Department of Trade and Industry has access to research of alcohol-consumption patterns in SA. It should know that the incidence of liquor consumption has dropped in the 18-to-21 age group. There is no rational reason to introduce this restriction unless it is an indirect attempt to deal with the far more worrying issue of illicit alcohol consumption among those under-18.
Does the department imagine that prohibiting the sale of liquor to the 18 to 21 group will deal with teenage drinking? SA’s history of black prohibition shows that there will always be middlemen willing to supply alcohol to those prohibited from buying it. The proposed regulations governing on-air liquor advertising are equally poorly thought-out. In terms of the draft act, liquor companies will not be allowed to place advertising on radio and television until after 10pm — presumably to save youthful minds from acquiring any interest in the demon drink.
Again, the department knows that the industry’s marketing codes prohibit liquor advertisements to audiences that research shows comprise 30% or more of people 18 or younger.
There is self-interest in this provision: why would you pay to talk to an audience that is not your target market?
What makes this attempt to keep alcohol advertising from a younger audience all the more curious is that the Department of Health’s regulatory impact assessment on marketing restrictions concluded that there was no scientific evidence that showed advertising increases the harmful use of alcohol.
More importantly, the assumption that removing alcohol advertising will keep the youth of this country in happy ignorance is plainly naive. Given the extent to which illicit drugs have permeated the consciousness of the population, it is clear that this regulation is a knee-jerk gesture by the authorities on account of their failure to manage underage drinking.
Sadly, there will be drastic and permanent consequences to the political grandstanding. If, by some extraordinary miracle of policing, it does become difficult for the country's youth to access commercial alcoholic beverages, they will have no difficulty buying the illegal brews of which hundreds of millions of litres are sold annually, according to officials in the Department of Customs and Excise.
Of course, it may just be easier for those seeking a mind-altering experience to acquire supplies of illicit drugs. The consequence of driving potential drinkers to the open arms of drug-lords will see a shift to the long-term more serious threat of chemical addiction.
There is no logic to the proposed prohibitions on locating licences in close proximity to places of worship, schools or transport routes. The 2015 draft liquor policy paper suggested that these regulations would apply to all new applications, and also to established licences.
The consequence of driving potential drinkers to the open arms of drug-lords will see a shift to the long-term more serious threat of chemical addiction
— Michael Fridjhon
It seems that the initial focus of the draft act will be on new applicants. If that is the case, the evils the bill proposes to tackle will already be entrenched and only newcomers will be prejudiced. If not, the new act would prohibit the sale of liquor in the vicinity of the Cape Town Waterfront, for example, and there is nowhere in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg that it would be legal to site a licensed restaurant or bottle store.
The clauses aimed at imposing vicarious liability on producers and licensees for damage caused by their inebriated customers is both a measure of the state’s impotence when it comes to policing and a measure of the irrationality of those responsible for drafting the bill.
How could SABMiller be expected to know that a particular purchaser of its beers would get drunk and behave badly? Would this logic lead to the manufacturers of bread knives being held liable for the misuse of their products and having to pay compensation if a knife-wielding assassin went on the rampage?
The more the irrationality of the proposed legislative changes is examined, the more it seems that the new act is an expensive exercise to produce a smokescreen to hide the multiple failures of the two ministries responsible for drafting it.
Driven by Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies, on whose watch we witnessed a catastrophic decline in economic output, and Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, whose huge budgets bought an irretrievably broken health system, the new liquor act looks like an attempt to buy votes from a powerful prohibitionist lobby, while concealing the incompetence of two of the most important and profligate departments in President Jacob Zuma’s government.
• Fridjhon is a visiting professor of wine business at the UCT Graduate School of Business
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