No political will to tackle a real drug problem

There's a piece by Donna Ah Chee in The Australian on controlling alcohol abuse and alcohol-related violence in aboriginal communities. She notes:

The harm in any alcoholic beverage is due to the price per standard drink of pure alcohol it contains. So spirits, at 40 per cent alcohol by volume, are considered much less harmful than cask wine -- at 9.5 per cent alcohol by volume -- because the pure alcohol in a bottle of spirits sells at about three times the price per standard drink when compared to a cask of cheap wine.

This is largely because the government taxes least the drinks that are consumed the most. They don't want to upset the alcoholic beverage manufacturers who make fat political donations, and they don't want to upset the booze-swilling voters, because booze-swilling is practically a national pastime (unless you're Sudanese-Australian, in which case it's an offence which will practically get you kicked out of the country). Ah Chee quotes alcohol policy researcher professor Robin Room, who says, "what's popular doesn't work, and what works isn't popular".

That's about it. There's a wholehearted devotion by the Howard government and Rudd's Opposition to averting their eyes from a massive national problem. Which is why we see $150 million of taxpayers' money devoted to tackling the 'ice epidemic' while only $25 million is devoted by the government to a limp-wristed 'safe alcohol consumption' campaign. If funding were based on the amount of harm caused to the community by a drug, a lot more would go to measures aimed at reducing levels of excessive alcohol consumption.

Ah Chee believes supply reduction, not prohibition, is the key:

Take-away hours on other days should also be reduced. This should be combined with reducing the amount of take-away alcohol licences given in any location.

These types of supply reduction measures are not popular with many who gain financially from alcohol sales, because they impact on their profits. They reduce consumption and therefore reduce the profits from alcohol sales. They are also initially not popular with the general community, but there is evidence to suggest that this is partly due to the misinformation about what actually works.

Many people in the general community believe that alcohol education works, and that this -- along with better treatment services -- is all that is needed without anyone having to be inconvenienced by restricting alcohol availability. If only this were true.

There is also the mistaken belief that reducing supply equates to prohibition and that it will prompt heavy drinkers to shift to more harmful drugs. As long as there is still ready access to alcohol, this does not occur. People keep drinking, but in a less harmful way; this is the goal of supply reduction.