Submission on National Liquor Policy

COMMENTS

to the

DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY

(for the attention of Ms Nkoe Ramphele)

 

About the proposed

NATIONAL LIQUOR POLICY

[Made known under Notice 446 of 2015]

New Policy reiterates the need to give priority to facilitating entry and empowering entrants

We note with approval that the proposed National Liquor Policy reiterates that the 1997 Policy consideration of “giving priority to facilitation of entry” remains a critical challenge today and to a great extent remains the focus for this review, among other things.

 

The draft Policy notes that the results of the apartheid liquor policy were countless raids, harassment, arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment of African people. Also, it led to social breakdown, family violence, alcohol related diseases, crime and accidents in poor communities. A large illegal liquor trade mushroomed in the townships.[1]

 

However, the current draft Policy proposals contradict the 1997 policy, and will not facilitate entry or empower new entrants.

 

There can be absolutely no doubt that if implemented they would prevent restructuring, entry and empowerment. Indeed, those are their stated objectives, namely to reduce the number of outlets, the number of areas in which outlets would be lawful and the ease of entry.

 

The problem would be compounded by the fact that they set out to limit access to liquor, prevent advertising and marketing, and substantially reduce the number of people who can lawfully consume alcohol.

 

Short history of apartheid liquor laws

The prohibition act of 1897 made it illegal for black South Africans to drink alcohol. It led to organised crime and illegal drinking establishments named shebeens. Many Africans were arrested for alcohol-related offences. Shebeens continued to thrive after the 1927 Liquor Act, which among other restrictions prohibited Africans and Indians from selling.

 

In the 1930s the government introduced beer halls which were government owned and the only places black South Africans were allowed to buy beer. A beer hall was typically a bleak, brick structure which sold tickets to drinkers, who moved through turnstiles to collect their cartons of traditional beer. Workers referred to the experience as “drinking in a cage”. They were only sold traditional sorghum beer.[2] There were laws governing how much liquor black South Africans were allowed to carry. If they carried more than allowed it was a criminal offence and they were considered traders. Thus if they bought enough for a wedding or a funeral and were caught they would be called criminals.

 

Whites were considered responsible and respectable enough to buy and consume as much liquor as they wished, and to own liquor stores and sell liquor. Blacks were presumed to be incapable of responsible liquor trade or consumption. Their dignity as responsible humans was undermined.

 

In 1957, a sixth of all convictions of Africans were for statutory liquor offences. In 1960, the Malan Commission of Inquiry’s report stated that black people were able to obtain liquor through illicit channels at high prices, and it was often in an adulterated form. The Commission concluded that to apply the Liquor Act was impossible in the current era, and recommended changes in the law. Amendments easing restrictions were consequently passed.

 

In 1961 shebeens were legally allowed to sell “white men’s liquor”. In 1962 the apartheid government opened some sales to black South Africans. However, black South Africans could still not drink in “white areas”, but they could now buy commercial beer at off-sales or white outlets. Yet they weren’t allowed in the general liquor stores and there was still a legal maximum to how much beer they could carry or buy. Following these changes the government then allowed liquor sales in black areas, but in night clubs and restaurants only and not bottle stores. The alcohol could only be bought with a meal. Then they allowed on consumption without a meal, then finally off-consumption, strictly licensed.

 

All the way along the process, the reduction of liquor regulation for blacks resulted in less liquor abuse, less crime, fewer accidents and less violence.

 

Draft Policy will effectively reinstate apartheid liquor policy

The proposed “new” Policy is fundamentally and absolutely the opposite of what was envisaged in 1997.

 

The idea in 1997 was to reverse the legacy of apartheid liquor law, whereas the current proposals will effectively reinstate apartheid policy.

 

The proposed Policy will result in the liquor trading conditions and illicit production that prevailed under the apartheid liquor policy, with countless raids, harassment, arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment of (mainly) African people.^[3]

 

The Policy will lead to an ever-increasing informal liquor segment where many unlicensed liquor outlets will continue to operate.

 

The proposed Policy will again lead to social breakdown, family violence, alcohol-related diseases, crime and accidents in poor communities. A large illegal liquor trade will again mushroom in the townships.

 

New Policy will reverse transformation gains

The draft Policy laments the “slow pace of transformation”.[4] There has, in fact, been substantial transformation in all aspects of the liquor industry, particularly retailing.

 

Under apartheid there was, for practical purposes, no lawful liquor trade in black hands. There are many thousands of lawful liquor outlets owned or managed by blacks now, and millions of black consumers now lawfully consume alcohol.

 

It is, however, true that there has not been as much transformation as there would have been had the process of liquor law liberalisation during the declining years of apartheid and the early years of democracy been continued. To the extent that elements of apartheid liquor policy survived and were not repealed in the new South Africa, the pace of transformation was retarded.

 

The only way to end “the slow pace of transformation” is to do the opposite of what is proposed, namely to complete the process of relaxation and repeal.

 

Not only will what is proposed slow down the pace of transformation, but it is likely to cause transformation to cease completely, if not be reversed.

 

Making more activities illegal will lead to more illegal activities taking place

The draft Policy also proposes eradicating “manufacturing and trading in illegal or illicit alcohol”.[5]

 

Illegality is, logically, the consequence of law. If something is prohibited, doing so is by definition illegal.

 

If more activities are made illegal as proposed, it must inevitably and obviously result in the opposite of eradication, namely expansion of illegal activities.

 

To eradicate illegality or substantially reduce it, the opposite of what is proposed will have to be done, namely relaxation and repeal of the legal prohibitions.

 

Our observations here are not a matter of opinion, they are objective incontestable facts.

 

More prohibitions will multiply existing capacity and enforcement constraints

The draft Policy refers to challenges regarding “capacity and enforcement,” and the objectives of “enforcement and education and awareness.”[6]

 

What is proposed will increase demands and expectations on the national authorities substantially and will multiply rather than reduce “capacity and enforcement constraints.”

 

We submit that an effective and legitimate liquor policy should envisage a liberated, emancipated and empowered South African population in which liquor abuse is minimised by enforcing a minimum number of laws properly and by promoting a widespread appetite for responsible alcohol consumption.

 

Authorising Minister to impose marketing restrictions would give undue power to executive

The draft Policy proposes the legislature delegating to the Minister the determining of restrictions and parameters for advertising and marketing of liquor products.[7]

 

There has been a deeply disturbing tendency during recent years to transfer law-making functions to the executive and to render the legislative branch of government increasingly redundant.

 

This is extremely undesirable for philosophical and practical reasons. The purpose of a democracy is to prevent power being concentrated in the executive and to ensure that laws are made by elected parliamentarians who exercise public scrutiny and participate in debate.

 

Advertising and marketing restrictions impair consumer rights

Restrictions on advertising and marketing are restrictions on the rights of producers and suppliers of alcohol. They will no doubt have much to say about this.

 

The more important rights that this proposal seeks to assail are the rights of consumers, from whom the government is likely to hear little or nothing. There are various reasons for this. There are only two formal consumer bodies in South Africa. They are thinly stretched trying to address literally thousands of concerns regarding consumers and hundreds of laws affecting them at all three levels of government.

 

One of the most fundamental consumer rights is the right to information and the primary source of consumer information is marketing and advertising.

 

Illogical to allow public to buy liquor, but forbid liquor companies to support small media businesses, scholarships, sports, recreation

The draft Policy proposes that the Minister of Trade and Industry be authorised to determine restrictions on advertisements of alcoholic beverages and prohibitions of sponsorship and promotions associated with alcoholic beverages, subject to the outcome of the draft Control of Marketing of Alcoholic Beverages Bill that has been developed by the Department of Health.[8]

 

The draft Policy seeks to address the problem of liquor abuse, yet what is proposed is a prohibition of what is incontestably virtuous, namely the allocation of profits from liquor to community activities.

 

As far back as the late 1950s large beer breweries have, through sponsorship, contributed to the socio-economic development within poor communities by giving young people the chance to improve their lives. Sponsorship is a powerful area in which large and small breweries alike can contribute to the socio-economic development of the country as well as the colour and richness of our arts, sports, culture and conservation.

 

The people for whom sponsorships are the most important are the destitute. Such a prohibition would victimise victims of apartheid.

 

It makes no sense to say that people who are free to get alcohol may not get sponsorship for such virtuous activities as the arts, sports and conservation.

 

These activities include recreation, academic research, scholarships, publications, electronic media, health and much more.

 

The contradiction is particularly clear when it is realised that it would even prohibit the liquor industry from sponsoring projects aimed at promoting responsible consumption.

 

As a simple matter of economics, all marginal activities will be rendered unsustainable in the absence of liquor industry support.

 

We do not believe that it is reasonable or rational to allow people to purchase alcohol but not allow people to receive support and sponsorship for what they do in civil society from the liquor companies that profit from the public’s patronage.

 

A charity, for example, operating at the margin but receiving some support from the liquor industry, will become insolvent and have to close if it can no longer count on that support.

 

Many civil society activities will be driven into bankruptcy by such a measure, including such healthy activities as sport and socially desirable activities as recreation and entertainment.

 

Marginal commercial activities will also collapse, including a wide range of radio stations, magazines, newspapers, and internet media.

 

This was the fate of marginal activities when tobacco advertising and marketing was banned.

Anyone around at the time will be able to recall examples of what society lost as a result.

 

No such drastic measure should be considered without an independent and sophisticated assessment of the full extent of the impact, which pays special attention to secondary and unintended consequences, such as job losses.

 

Consumers are entitled to the benefits of advertising and marketing. Consumers have a right to know what is on the market and where they can purchase what they want. They have a right to promotions.

 

International experience has shown that disallowing alcohol advertising has not had the desired impact of reducing consumption. India banned advertising of liquor in 1995 but has had one of the fastest growing alcohol markets in the world.

 

Proportion of total consumption that constitutes abuse not quantified, likely small

The premise behind this liquor policy, rightly or wrongly, is that liquor sometimes has adverse effects. The draft Policy refers to a number of findings.[9]

 

But the proportion of the total alcohol consumption that constitutes “abuse” has not been quantified.

 

It is however clear from casual observation that virtually all liquor is consumed in ways that cannot reasonably be called “abuse”. Proposing such an extreme set of measures for what may well be a proportionately small part of the overall consumption of liquor is “cracking a nut with a sledgehammer”.

 

Proposal for separate fund with industry contributions to combat abuse

The draft Policy proposes that a government-managed fund responsible for combating alcohol abuse be established, with the industry contributing a percentage to be determined by the Minister of Trade and Industry.[10]

 

(Apparently provision has already been made for such a fund under control of the Minister of Social Development, which will deal with abuse of other substances as well;

 

And it seems that determining the percentage that industry must contribute would be levying a tax, and so should be in a separate money Bill introduced by the Minister of Finance:

 

These observations are fully discussed in the separate submission lodged by our sister organisation, the Law Review Project.)

 

The World Health Organisation observes that international experience with earmarking (the ring-fencing of a specific tax for a health fund or other dedicated purpose) shows that Ministries of Finance rarely endorse the practice, because it undermines their mandate to allocate budgets as they see appropriate. It exempts tax revenues from scrutiny, and curtails a government’s flexibility to spend when and where it is needed most.[11]

 

Earmarking also encourages rent-seeking. Beneficiaries and would-be beneficiaries of earmarked funds are encouraged to lobby government for ever higher levies, regardless of their appropriateness.[12]

 

Making suppliers liable for accidents and crimes will be iniquitous, unworkable and costly

It is proposed that, should retailers serve liquor products to an intoxicated person and that person is involved in a motor accident or crime related to substance abuse, then the manufacturer, distributor and retailer should bear liability for any harm or damages.[13]

 

We submit that this proposal that liquor suppliers should be vicariously liable for other people’s actions is unfair and unreasonable.

 

Manufacturers have no control over the drinker. They are so far removed from the end drinker that they cannot, under any sane proposition, be considered liable for his or her actions.

 

It would be like holding a motorcar manufacturer liable for anyone’s reckless driving, or a pharmacy liable for a person’s committing suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets. Even the apartheid regime did not think of anything as absurd as blaming supermarkets for selling knives to people who stab victims.[14]

 

Apart from the injustice of this idea, it is unworkable and impractical.

 

To require a retailer, perhaps an unsophisticated canteen owner in a rural village, to be able to identify “intoxicated persons” expects the impossible. There is no objective definition of intoxication.

 

Mindful of this fact, the law regarding driving under the influence of alcohol relies on a scientifically objective test, namely the quantity of alcohol in a suspect’s blood. It should be noted that this is not a test of intoxication. People with relatively high proportions of alcohol in their blood often and easily pass intoxication tests.

 

Clearly retailers cannot be expected to perform blood tests on customers as police do. How then are they to establish intoxication? Standard methods – there is no uniformly recognised protocol – include asking people questions, such as requiring them to do simple arithmetic or to recite the alphabet. Clearly such tests can be performed only on literate people and would discriminate against less sophisticated consumers.

 

Other tests involve physical activity such as asking a suspect to walk on a line painted on the surface of a road or floor, or to balance on one leg. All such tests – there is a wide variety – presuppose physically or mentally healthy and sophisticated people. A disabled person or someone with arthritis would fail such physical tests; elderly people might appear intoxicated when completely sober.

 

It is also unrealistic to expect suppliers to establish whether patrons are “intoxicated”.

 

A person who drinks to excess might not be intoxicated at the time they leave a liquor outlet. They might later be involved in a motor accident or crime. Police tests might establish that they were extremely intoxicated at the time of the accident or crime. A completely innocent supplier might be liable for unfortunate events that follow.

 

Another practical problem with the proposal is that liquor might be purchased by, for instance, an intoxicated host for consumption by his or her guests. An intoxicated person might purchase alcohol from an off-consumption retailer for consumption many days later.

 

Of the many other conundrums and complications that present themselves, we mention another by way of illustration, namely that an accident or crime involving an intoxicated person might not be a result of their intoxication.

 

The term “alcohol-related” is ambiguous because it refers only to the fact that one of the people involved in an accident or crime might have been intoxicated, without it being clear whether the intoxication caused the harm. If an intoxicated driver is stopped innocently at a red light and rear-ended by a sober driver, the accident is still called “alcohol related”.

 

Legitimate concerns about “drunk driving” easily lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of accidents are caused by sober drivers. If an innocent person is injured in a collision, they suffer injury even when the wrongdoer was sober. Yet nobody proposes prohibiting driving while sober.

 

It is not clear why the proposal refers generally to “substance abuse”. Nor is it clear which substances are referred to.

 

Fundamental principles are at stake. One person should never be liable for the misconduct of another, unless they can be shown according to long-established principles of common law to be an accomplice. If supplying liquor to an intoxicated person amounts to culpable conduct, long-established law is perfectly capable of holding the supplier liable. People are held responsible for the consequences of their actions.

 

This proposal seeks to impose liability where none exists. Such matters should be left to the ordinary law and the courts. There is no need for new legislation.

 

Restricting trading hours will encourage more readily-available illegal concoctions

The draft Policy says that to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, it is important to regulate the availability of alcohol, by restricting the days and hours when liquor sales are permitted. Liquor authorities and municipalities need to control access to liquor by restricting trading hours.[15]

 

Restricting trading hours will drive drinking into the black market and underground. The effect will be the opposite of what is intended.

 

We know from painful South African experience acknowledged in this draft Liquor Policy under consideration[16] that the initial prohibition and subsequent severe limitation of alcohol “availability” for all South Africans, especially black South Africans under apartheid, did not result in less consumption.

 

It had the opposite effect, as the DTI acknowledges. It resulted in complex criminal markets and liquor abuse on a despicable scale. Limited availability of legitimate alcohol generated a vast market for informal concoctions with many names such as barberton, skokiaan, peach brandy and the like.

 

 The liberalisation of liquor policy and the normalisation of alcohol as a legitimate right of consumers led to the virtual elimination of a criminal liquor industry.

 

We understand that it can be superficially assumed that limiting availability and access by restricting trading days and hours will lead to less consumption. But a moment’s reflection shows this to be without substance. The world is replete with examples.

 

Some European countries such as the United Kingdom introduced severe limits on trading hours during the war which endured into the 1980s. The well-known effect was that when “last rounds” were called, people would order more liquor than they might otherwise have done. They were forced by time constraints to drink it expeditiously. When it was recognised that the law was entirely counter-productive it was scrapped and liquor may now be freely purchased at any time in the UK.

 

Some central European countries have never had any liquor law to speak of. Liquor is literally sold always and everywhere even over a garden fence in a residential area. Liquor abuse in such countries is less common simply because everyone knows that they can get liquor readily whenever they wish.

 

Restricting trading hours will encourage the supply of illegal concoctions that are more readily available than legitimate liquor from licensed outlets with restricted opening times. The proposed reintroduction of limited hours and outlets that characterised apartheid liquor policy was a patronising and demeaning insult to human dignity. It is inappropriate in the extreme in the new South Africa, and should not be considered for reintroduction.

 

Unjust to prevent young adults from drinking responsibly until they turn 21

The draft Policy proposes that the national minimum legal age at which alcohol can be purchased and consumed should be raised from 18 to 21 years.[17]

 

The current drinking age of 18 has logic. Eighteen-year-olds can drive and vote and marry and pursue a career and enter into contracts.

 

It would be anomalous if they are allowed to make all big decisions in life but cannot decide whether to have a drink with a meal or a mate.

 

All right-thinking people would want to imbue people with a responsible attitude to drinking at an early age. If the right to consume liquor is deferred to the age of 21, the introduction of responsible behaviour is unwisely delayed.

 

An age limit of 21 will never be properly enforced.

 

This proposal will drive people younger than 21 but older than 18 to go underground and to drink illicitly in more dangerous circumstances with less emphasis on responsible drinking. Unlike respectable establishments serving alcohol legally, where responsible drinking is an encouraged culture, young adults will be forced into buying alcohol illegally at more unsavoury establishments.

 

This was evidenced when alcohol was prohibited to black South Africans and illegal shebeens first started. Alcohol in shebeens was often brewed illicitly and mixed with methylated spirits.

 

Raising the legal age will push underage binge drinking into less controlled environments, leading to more health and life-endangering behaviour among young people. They will not be in environments where they are surrounded by seasoned seniors who can set a good example and watch them for safety reasons.

 

Astounding distance rule is ill-considered, unjust, inconvenient, and unfair to poor

The draft Policy proposes that liquor premises be located at least half a kilometre away from schools, places of worship, recreation facilities, rehabilitation or treatment centres, residential areas and public institutions. No liquor licences shall be issued to premises attached to petrol service stations, premises near public transport, and areas not classified for entertainment or zoned by municipalities for purposes of trading in liquor. If a licence is already issued it should be terminated within two years.[18]

 

This provision is biased toward wealthy elite people living in spacious neighbourhoods. Introducing such a rule in low-income and high-density areas will discriminate against the poor. Blacks will be forced to buy from whites.

 

There is a Muslim place of worship in Sandton City.[19] The provision will make all alcohol sales in restaurants and hotel bars within half a kilometre illegal.

 

If a hotel has a chapel, the hotel will be forbidden to sell liquor. A hotel near a church could not serve alcohol via room service or stock the minibars in its rooms with alcohol.

 

It is not clear why there should be no liquor retail outlets in half a kilometre of a place of worship. Are worshippers especially prone to alcohol abuse? Will it affect the use of sacramental wine in Catholic churches?

 

This proposal is impractical to the point of craziness. It would turn many forms of normal, legal behaviour into criminal behaviour

 

The inevitable consequence of such a measure is that people will drink far from their homes. Resurrecting apartheid’s “radius law” in this way means that only middle- and high-income people with private transport will be in easy reach of liquor outlets. Preventing poorer people from buying liquor near public transport will, as before, require them to walk or cycle after drinking. Mugging, rape and alcohol-related accidents will increase.[20]

 

The list includes “areas not classified for entertainment or zoned by municipalities for purposes of trading in liquor”.

 

What the law should focus on is people committing criminal acts regardless of whether intoxicated or where they became intoxicated.

 

In the British tradition of the village pub, having liquor close to home is preferable to having to travel far away.

 

The government should instead promote responsible consumption and make it convenient and accessible.

 

After lamenting apartheid liquor policy, the new policy proposes its reintroduction. As explicit racism is unconstitutional, sanitised surrogates are concocted. A non-racial veneer conceals such ingenious stratagems as requiring liquor outlets to be in “zoned areas”. Formerly black areas were dormitory towns without zoning, and the proposal amounts to apartheid disguised. In the absence of zoning, a lucky or corrupt few will be given apartheid-style “consent use”.[21]

 

To this day, most townships have no properties zoned for business purposes. Consent use is difficult and expensive to get.

 

To require zoning in black communities should not be considered until all historically-black cities have proper town-planning schemes with enough property zoned for business purposes to serve all community needs.

 

Policy harms emerging businesses in entertainment, catering, manufacturing, retail

The draft Policy proposes that, to address the issue of transformation, the national liquor authority must be empowered to ensure that licensing conditions articulated in the Broad- Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Good Practice are imposed and strictly monitored. Non-compliance with these Codes should result in suspension or revocation of the licence.[22]

 

It is paradoxical for a proposal to severely limit opportunities within the industry from production to consumption, and then in the same breath talk about opportunities and transformation and empowerment.

 

This proposed new Policy would have precisely the opposite effect, and entrench existing large and sophisticated operations capable of complying with the law.

 

Curtailing advertising, information about brands, product availability and prices, combined with fewer outlets, will eliminate competition, especially from emerging businesses in entertainment, catering, manufacturing and retailing.[23] 

 

Unwise to harmonise provincial and national laws

The draft Policy proposes that harmonisation of the provincial liquor statutes with the national Act should be encouraged, and monitored for timely implementation.[24]

 

Liquor licensing is an exclusive provincial competence under the Constitution. Failure to recognise this is what led to the ruling by the Constitutional Court against the 1997 bill. President Mandela, as a trained lawyer, personally refused to sign the bill into law after it had been passed by all parties in both houses. He referred it to the Constitutional Court which agreed with him that central government interference in liquor licensing is unconstitutional.

 

Far from the central government trying to promote or impose “harmonisation”, it should accept South Africa’s allocation of powers to provincial and local government. The Constitution’s values and objectives are the opposite of harmonisation. They are to promote and protect diversity.

 

A practical benefit of a multiplicity of diversity is the “demonstration effect,” whereby it can be seen within one country which provincial policy works best.

 

Uniformity is undesirable. Nobody knows all optimal solutions in advance. Everyone can benefit from different policies, to discover which approach has better results than others.

 

Appoint police as inspectors where necessary

The draft Policy proposes that, to enhance capacity in the transformed national and the provincial liquor authorities, provision should be made for South African Police Service officials to be appointed as inspectors under the relevant legislation, where necessary to complement existing capacity. The enhanced capacity will assist in monitoring and enforcement in the liquor industry.[25]

 

This may well be an appropriate and legitimate government response to its concerns.

 

But if police are not policing the unlicensed trade properly now, it is doubted that designating them as inspectors of the licensed trade will improve policing the unlicensed.

 

Enforcement of new liquor restrictions will reduce resources that could be used for the enforcement of other laws, leading to reduced deterrence of crime generally. And it is likely that increased restrictions will not be effectively enforced where most needed. The South African Police Service observes that local communities accept high numbers of unlawful liquor outlets.

 

Revenue raised from alcohol far exceeds revenue spent on alcohol abuse

The draft Policy says that the World Health Organisation estimated that the costs of alcohol abuse in South Africa in 2004 was $1.7bn (R19bn), 2% of South African gross domestic product.[26] That was at the time almost three times the amount of excise tax received by government from the liquor industry, says the draft Policy.[27] It says alcohol abuse entails enormous costs to the public sector, including health costs police, court and penal system costs.[28]

 

We observe that it is one of the great myths regarding government expenditure on, for example, people suffering from alcohol-related illness, accidents and the like, that they impose a net cost on government or “society”. This fallacious argument extends to motor-accident victims generally, tobacco, junk food, salt, sugar and other substances considered unhealthy.

 

The simple fact is that revenue collected from alcohol far exceeds revenue spent on problems associated with alcohol abuse. Government collects revenue, not only directly from excise duties (sin tax) on liquor products, but also from such sources as income taxes and value-added tax paid by all enterprises in the production, distribution and retail chain from agricultural source to final consumption.

 

In the process, many thousands of people are employed who pay income tax. Import duties and other revenues are collected from enterprises that purchase plant and equipment.

 

Related industries from which government collects revenue include industries that produce bottles and cans, the transport sector, and more. A percentage of the revenue from the hotel industry, the entertainment industry and many other industries is from alcohol.

 

Increase in reported incidents is not an increase in incidents

The draft Policy says that alcohol abuse is leading to increasing levels of conflict in the family, violence, crime, alcohol related diseases, sexual violence and high-risk sexual behaviour.[29]

 

We contend that it is very easy to confuse improved information with deteriorating conditions.

 

Our welfare authorities are at great pains to explain that the fact that more child abuse is recorded does not mean an increase in child abuse, but an increase in reported incidents, which, paradoxically, is likely to coincide with reduced abuse.

 

Similar explanations have been offered by the authorities regarding increased reports of rape and domestic violence.

 

Far from lamenting the fact that more incidents of abuse are being reported, it is to be celebrated. Better information enables government to address issues more effectively.

 

We at the Free Market Foundation do not have sufficient information to interrogate concerns about such conditions as foetal alcohol syndrome.[30]

 

 

No evidence that measures proposed will reduce “social-economic impact” of abuse

The draft Policy says that its proposed recommendations “will assist” in addressing the socio-economic impact of liquor.[31] We have addressed those proposals above.

 

There is no evidence in support of the view that the proposed recommendations will reduce the costs of alcohol abuse, or the “social-economic impact” of liquor.

 

Our ghastly apartheid experience with the same measures showed quite the opposite, as the draft Policy acknowledges.[32]

 

Liquor-related medical conditions are not alleviated just because liquor is bought 0.5 km away and before statutory closing time. Such measures cannot be shown to reduce harmful consumption.

 

South Africa already has comprehensive laws with the stated aim of reducing the socio-economic costs of alcohol abuse. National legislation regulates manufacture and distribution, and provincial laws govern retail supply. There are statutory disqualifications and licence conditions, and requirements for management, premises, hours and delivery. Liquor sold under on-consumption licences must be consumed on the premises. Supply to minors or an intoxicated person is prohibited, as is intoxication in public. Inspectors have wide powers. Regulators have the ability to cancel registration or licensing for contraventions of the laws. There are stringent penalties for contravening any of these laws.

 

As long as liquor is a lawful and legitimate product, the only effective thing for government to do is to inform and educate the public about risks and to promote and encourage responsible behaviour.