Alcohol consumption down again

If you believe the wowsers the 1989 liberalisation of our liquor laws saw a huge uptake in alcohol. That allowing supermarkets to sell alcohol was a mistake. That longer hours for bars was a mistake etc.

But Stats NZ has just released the alcohol for consumption stats for the year to June 2020. There was an average of 9.06 litres of alcohol per adult. In 1989 it was 10.97 litres. So it is 17% less than before liberalisation.

Since 2005 they have also tracked the individual types of alcohol. Changes since 2005 are:

• Beer -24%
• Wine -7%
• Spirits with under 23% alcohol +53%
• Spirits with over 23% alcohol 0%

The problem isn’t the law. The problem is the minority who are problem drinkers.