Briefe an ....
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June 3, 2005 European Commission
Re: Meeting
of the Working Group on Alcohol and Health Dear Sir, I was invited by EUROCARE to give my personal opinion regarding the EU Strategy on Alcohol as it had been discussed at the above meeting. In general I quite agree with the aims and measures
in this strategy report. It is very much needed and urgent that the
European Union takes strong steps in this field. As citizen of a non EU
country I am much interested that you go ahead because it would
influence also the alcohol politics in Switzerland which is handicapped
by the strong lobbying of the alcohol industry. Here my remarks:
Comments to EU strategy on Alcohol
By Hermann T. Meyer, Lindenstr. 32,
CH-8307 Effretikon. (www.alkoholpolitik.ch)
The
aim is not clear enough, it is better to give a specific goal like 40%
less deaths by the end of 2010.
The
proposed measures are not fully satisfying. It is not mentioned that
youth is the mirror of society. As long as the adult society gives such
a bad example, the adolescents will not accept our prevention measures.
The effect will be small, as so far, except of the pricing. (See:
“Alkohol und Massenmedien” (Alcohol and massmedia), WHO Regional
Publications Nr. 62 1998; page 4: the social reality stands against
prevention, which is not credible. The
aim must be as well to reduce the presence of alcohol in society:
publicity in sports, in cinemas, in TV must stop. It
is not enough to start measures against juveniles who can’t defend
themselves, just to show that something has been done (alibi function)
but as adults not to take responsibility and accept some restrictions
for themselves. See also: Summary record of the meeting of the Working Group on “Alcohol and Health” on 7 and 8 March 2005 in Luxembourg: Point 4:
…”the importance not to underrate education. With reference to the
presentation, Working Group
But education must have special aims and methods otherwise it is
not credible.
The aim is not clear enough: Reduce exposure…. To what extent! The industry will always say it is reduced enough. In Switzerland they get even more possibilities on private local TV. “Ensure that no commercial communication encourages excessive or harmful use of alcohol.” The industry will never feel guilty in this point. „Participate
in a process of co-regulation, whereby self-regulatory approaches
adopted by the beverage alcohol industry are monitored by an independent
body.”
“Actions
Invite the Council, the European Parliament and the European
Economic and Social Committee to discuss
the rates of excise duty applied to alcohol and alcoholic beverages, and
travellers’ I
would like to recommend that my proposal of a project to rise excise
duties on alcoholic beverages be discussed. It is available on my
website www.alkoholpolitik.ch
. (page project) Alcohol taxes should reflect the damage which society
has to finance because of alcohol. It should also reduce the overall
consumption of alcohol which is in correlation with the burden of
alcohol on society. But in order to get a taxation which is high enough
to reach this aim, it is necessary to spend part of the tax income for
prevention in a wider sense, which can attract the public to agree. (Culture
and sports) And part of the income should be used to help the alcohol
producers in a specific country to find new ways to exist or to change
to an other profession. Only if a country gets more money from
alcohol taxes it can afford to build up all the necessary programmes and
research work. The same applies to the Non Governmental Organisations.
This project would make it available. Yours sincerely
Hermann T. Meyer |
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