Drunk drunkards and avid alcoholics drink more than 68% of alcohol produced in the UK, bringing more than a third of the profits to producers of such drinks. This conclusion was reached by physicians who published an article in the journal Addiction .
“If the people of Britain did not exceed the norms established by the health services, then the prices for beer in bars and wine in supermarkets would have to be raised three to five times, so that the alcohol producers would not lose in the proceeds. All of this suggests that they did not especially seek to maintain “moderate” levels of drinking, “- said Colin Angus (Colin Angus) from Sheffield University (United Kingdom).
In recent years, scientists have found many hints that alcohol not only destroys the liver and causes severe psychological and physiological dependence, but also contributes to the development of cancer, diabetes and many other serious illnesses. Similar new negative features were discovered in tobacco.
According to WHO statistics, alcoholism and smoking kill approximately 3.5 and 5 million lives each year, which is comparable to the number of victims of car accidents and some forms of cancer. Today, many drug addicts are actively calling on governments of all countries to equate alcohol and cigarettes and heavy drugs, and to prohibit their use and trafficking, as they take no less lives than heroin or other opiates.
All producers of beer, wine and strong drinks, as Engus notes, often claim that they favor “moderate” alcohol consumption and have a strong negative attitude towards drinking and drinking. British scientists have checked whether this is really so, by analyzing how much their products are bought by “ordinary people” and drunk drunkards who have not left the drinking-bout for months.
To do this, scientists collected statistics on alcohol sales in bars and supermarkets and interviewed several thousand drinking Britons. They were interested not only in the volume of alcohol consumed and its type, but also where they preferred to take drinks and what prices they suited. Comparing this information with the sales volumes, scientists calculated the share of alcohol, which account for both groups of alcohol lovers.
As it turned out, alcoholics, despite the overwhelming numerical superiority of “ordinary people”, drank the lion’s share of alcohol – they accounted for approximately 68% of total alcohol sales. They preferred to buy alcohol in supermarkets and liquor stores, rather than in bars, providing them with up to 80% of revenue.
Among drunkards, as Engus notes, there were “champions” – the most drunk British, 4% of the total population of the country, drank more than 25% of alcohol produced. If they abandoned their addiction, then the producers’ earnings of these drinks would drop by almost 40%.
Interestingly, these people leaned more on light types of alcohol – cider, beer and wine – than on whiskey, vodka and other strong drinks. According to doctors, they drank 77% of beer, 70% of cider and 66% of wine produced or imported into Britain, and only 50% of heavy alcohol.
All this, according to Engius and his colleagues, suggests that alcohol companies are concerned only about profits, not about people’s health, and that current measures to combat drunkenness do not work. Their strengthening – the introduction of a minimum price for any portion of alcohol and the introduction of new excises – will help reduce the damage that alcohol does to society, scientists conclude.
