Université de Neuchâtel, Suisse, October 24-25th, 2003.
Keywords: Health;
The conference was centred around the launching of a study commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health to assess the costs in Switzerland of alcohol misuse, prepared by a team from the Economics Department of the Université de Neuchâtel, led by Professor Claude Jeanrenaud. Additionally, a number of international experts were invited to give papers on broader issues. The report International Guidelines for Estimating the Costs of Substance Abuse (2ed), written by some of these experts and just published by the World Health Organisation was, in effect, also launched. This report highlights and reflects upon some of the papers presented at the conference.
Conference on ‘The Social Cost of Alcohol Abuse’, IRER – University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, 24-25 October, 2003
Keywords: Health;
Abstract
While New Zealand has some measurement of the social costs of alcohol misuse, which the paper reports, the interest in the country, and this paper, has been the shift to implementing policies whose focus is to minimise harm from misuse.
The paper traverses the policy environment from the initial revenue-raising role of the excise duty in 1840. As the frontier society moved to a settled society, policy from the 1890s moved to restricting the consumption of alcohol, with revenue remaining the main fiscal concern. However, in 1989 a new direction was undertaken in which aimed to minimise restrictions on low and zero harm alcohol consumption, and eliminate as far as was practical harm arising from misuse. Over the next 14 years various measures were taken culminating in the latest tax package of May 2003.
The paper traces through these changes. It argues that the policy transformation is not complete, and also discusses some of the inherent tensions in the new approach. In particular the shift from restriction to a liberal regime which treated liquor as a largely normal consumption good, with targeting on harm minimisation, resulted in easing of prohibitions on advertising of liquor.
But the paper also discusses the limitations of the economic approach, for it is not possible to use the policy instruments to target precisely on harm reduction without also limiting some low and zero harm consumption. This emphasises the need for non-economic policy instruments, most pertinently those which change attitudes to alcohol consumption where there remains a ‘frontier’ spirit.
Affidiavits are usually too specific to be of interest outside a particular court case. However, this one may be of wider interest, because it sets down some issues about reporting surveys to a court. The specific references to the person whose affidavit is being rebutted are removed, because it is the general principles which of interest here. Also removed are the cross references to the earlier affidavit. Otherwise there are no changes. The full affidavit is filed in the High Court, and its identifying details can be obtained from me. Brian Easton.
Listener 16 October, 2003.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
The fate of New Zealand will be largely a consequence of what happens overseas, together with our ability to seize the opportunities and manage the problems it creates. The truism has been a constant preoccupation of mine, and was the title theme of my macro-economic history In Stormy Seas. Recently, I have been trying to understand more about the long-term trends in the world economy, a phenomenon sometimes called “globalisation”.
Listener October 4, 2003.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
Our economic debate is bedevilled by defeatism, the belief that New Zealand cannot survive as an independent nation. Rogernomes seem to conclude that since their policies failed, there is no alternative but for us to become a colony. But even many post-Rogernomes, typically trained in the ideal of the US economy, think we are too small and too distant to survive.
