Individuals may prefer to consume “Alcopops” because it offers them convenience, the ability to accurately control their alcohol intake, and provides a level of safety from the dangers of drink spiking.
Yet the Federal government chooses to penalize these drinkers and possibly drive them to consume bottle based spirits and mixers where they do not potentially have the same control and safety.
Obviously wanting to appear a good corporate citizen and recognising the potential sales opportunity here in “The Projects” (A rather apt name a bemused colleague uses to describe the planning and social experimentation the local government undertakes in Gungahlin), it appears that the local Woolies is taking the knock on (or should that be the “knock up”) effects of the Alcopops tax seriously.
Woolies now sensibly encourages an impulse purchase of a packet of prophylactics to go with your bulk bottle of spirits and soft drink mixer.
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josh said :
A penalty is still a penalty even if one can avoid it. Perhaps your should not go around admonishing people for making ridiculous statements, when your own contains such a blatant internal contradiction.
Well, it looks like France is no longer a good example of a better option. Although comparing any country to the US is never a good idea there, 13 year olds are too busy trying not to have a “cap busted in their ass” by a “gangsta with a glock”, and don’t have time to drink, especially since smoking crack takes up so much of their time…
And in regard to drinking in France
The French drink one-and-a-half times more per capita than Americans and their death rate from liver cirrhosis is more than one-and-a-half times greater than that in the United States. According to WHO, France has the sixth highest adult per capita alcohol consumption in the world. Alcohol may be involved in nearly half of the deaths from road accidents, half of all homicides, and one-quarter of suicides, according to the French equivalent of the U.S. Institutes of Health.
French youth, who can legally drink at age 16, prefer beer and distilled spirits to wine and have increased their consumption fivefold since 1996, in part because 12- to 14-year-olds are drinking and binge drinking. This has led to a new government “War Against Drugs” that includes alcohol.
http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/french_drinking.htm
From the Age 29/7/08
According to figures from the Australian Tax Office and Customs released by the Government yesterday, there had been a 23% decline in overall spirits drinking between April and June, with 54% fewer sales in alcopops and only a 7% increase in hard spirits sales.
Seems to be to be working.
Granny said :
naughty!
At All Bar Nun for Norvan’s SIM challenge I was the one drinking coffee. So imagine my shock when I discovered that I have a binge drinking problem!
Yes, sometimes I actually do go out to dinner and have three glasses of wine….
johnboy said :
beats the hell out of BYO, though.
Yeah, but that was wine not Alcopops. And I’m sure that the 13 year old that was getting married wasn’t involved in the drinking….
I’m pretty sure Jesus not only turned water into wine to keep a party going (no doubt contributing to binge drinking in 1st century palestine), but while doing so was dodging excise.
After much consideration, Hell is almost certainly a internet forum….
fnaah said :
you seem to think that hell is warm?
canberra must be hell in summer.
or hell in winter.
always thought that hell is other people….
jakez said :
p1, I thought it was funny. And there’s a fair bit of truth in the argument.
Aussiegal, your threats of damnation don’t really scare people who don’t believe in hell, but feel free to cast me down with Beelzebub and all his little wizards while you’re at it. If hell exists, we’ll be down there fornicating and gambling and drinking and playing loud music and blaspheming for all eternity while you try not to think about the fun you should have had on earth while you had a chance.
I heard that France doesn’t have nearly as much of a youth alcohol problem as we and other countries do. I don’t have the details unfortunately.
That is what I have heard also, however broad scale cultural change isn’t something you just “implement” during a term in governmment.
p1 said :
I heard that France doesn’t have nearly as much of a youth alcohol problem as we and other countries do. I don’t have the details unfortunately.
It would be interesting to examine what happens in places such as France (where children drink wine with their parents at dinner), and Ireland (where I don’t think there is a drinking age, or if their is it is quite low).
peterh said :
Want to see underage drinking go down? Totally change the culture of drinking in the country, and increase the education of children within the family structure.
mmm, sounds simple, doesn’t it.
oh, and at AussieGal83
That comment may not have been very funny, but it was intended as a joke. I assume that your belief in Jebus is so secure that you need to defend any slander against his minions on earth venemantly?
jakez said :
peterh said :
Thumper said :
I was looking at the info for retail sales the other day, as my super is interlinked with the retail trade.
Spirit sales have increased, alco-pops are down, no mention about complementary sales of frangers.
the problem is that the retail stats are based on select areas of the nation. Aboriginal communities are excluded from the figures, as are less influential suburbs.
want to stop underage drinking? up the legal age to 21. then the mates who are 18 can’t buy for their younger mates. and by the time they are 21, they can face tougher penalties for providing to minors.