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Soapbox: Pushing back on neo-Prohibition

A century after it was abandoned as unworkable, Prohibition seems to be returning. There’s no official announcement of course, but it’s definitely coming our way... by stealthy, insidious steps. Prohibition had its origins in the Temperance Movement, whose motive was to prevent domestic violence; today’s war on alcohol is all about health. 

The latest salvo has been fired by the World Health Organization (WHO). This supranational quasi-regulatory body has already set out its Prohibitionist strategy, cajoling governments to adopt a policy of: “1. Making alcohol less affordable (eg by increasing excise taxes), 2. Banning or restricting alcohol marketing across all media, 3. Reducing alcohol availability (eg by regulating sale hours), 4. Placing health warnings on the labels of alcoholic beverages.”

• Read more: Quarter of UK drinkers embrace 'zebra striping' with alcohol-free options
  

An agenda straight out of the tobacco playbook.

But here’s the issue. While tobacco causes a host of health problems, of which lung cancer is only one, alcohol is a bizarrely paradoxical liquid. At very high doses it can be almost as dangerous as tobacco, while at low intakes it’s not only harmless, but actively beneficial. Yes, you read that right: drinking in moderation is good for your health. 

I’ve written two books about alcohol, both entirely based on the findings of research studies published in medical journals. And the evidence is overwhelming that, compared to teetotallers, sensible drinkers have reduced risks of heart disease, diabetes, dementia, osteoporosis, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, respiratory infections and even some cancers – in fact, a long list of substantial health benefits which unsurprisingly result in moderate drinkers outliving non-drinkers by about five years. These surprising results are bolstered by scores of clinical trials – the kinds often used by drug companies – which demonstrate that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol every day results in major improvements in the ‘biomarkers’ of disease such as insulin, homocysteine and cholesterol levels. 

What’s a moderate intake? The clinical trials have typically used a daily dose of 30g of alcohol, which roughly translates into a third of a bottle of wine, two or three gins/whiskies, or one-and-a-half pints of beer. Consequently, science has now firmly established those intakes as health-promoting – amounts which ironically far exceed most countries’ alcohol ‘guidelines’.   

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Official guidance

So booze and baccy are very different substances health-wise, and lumping them together is simply mindless.    

Nevertheless, medical authorities across the world seem determined to do so, by issuing official guidance that there is “no safe level of alcohol intake”. Again, the WHO has led the way, declaring alcohol’s harms to be no different from tobacco’s. “The risk to drinkers’ health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage”, says Carina Ferreira-Borges, the WHO’s programme manager for alcohol, illicit drugs and prison health (sic). “The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is.” 

In reply, the only thing I can say for sure is that Ferreira-Borges hasn’t read the medical evidence – either that or she’s being deliberately deceitful.

Nevertheless, the relentless official demonisation of alcohol is already paying off. The British Isles have been the first territories to succumb, with Scotland introducing minimum alcohol pricing in 2018, and Wales following suit two years later.   

But the most draconian anti-alcohol legislation will soon be enacted across the sea in Ireland. Bizarrely, the land of the world’s finest stout and whiskeys will be the first to obey the WHO’s labelling directive in 2026, when it will be mandatory to declare alcohol a cause of cancer.  

As it happens, that is one of the few harms where the label would be correct. Heavy drinkers – particularly those who also smoke – do have an increased risk of cancers of the mouth, throat and gullet. 

Those three so-called ‘head and neck cancers’ are – despite the scare stories about other cancers such as breast, bowel, liver and colon – the only ones where the extra risks of drinking are “clinically significant” and pass the test of a causal relationship. Fortunately however, as my wine book shows, the extra cancer risk is easily reduced by taking a particular nutritional supplement. 

However, the problem with putting health warnings on booze bottles is that they tell only one side of the story. Unlike tobacco, which is harmful at any level, alcohol is beneficial to health at relatively low intakes – wine in particular. 

So it would be medically highly misleading not to mention that on the label too. Fat chance though. For one thing, international regulations forbid the promotion of alcohol as a health drink. Remember the “Guinness is good for you” slogan? It was ditched in the 1960s. 

Of course, the more obvious obstacle to honest labelling is that any mention of health benefits would scupper the authorities’ push towards neo-Prohibition.  

Talking of Guinness, I note that its parent company Diageo has already positioned the brand to sidestep any future advertising bans. Its sponsorship of the recent Six Nations Rugby tournament heavily promoted Guinness 0.0, a zero-alcohol product – thus craftily keeping the Guinness name in the public eye.    

On the subject of alcohol-free drinks, don’t think that choosing to drink zero-alcohol wines will improve your health. For my recent wine book, I did a deep dive into the medical evidence and was astonished to discover that to obtain wine’s health benefits, you need to quaff the genuine liquid. 

For a number of interesting reasons, removing the alcohol contents seems to destroy wine’s health-giving qualities.      

So there’s obviously a happy synergy between alcohol and grape juice – a blessing that’s been known for centuries, but which science has now confirmed. A suggestion: the next time you open a bottle of your favourite wine, raise a glass and cry “Here’s to Mother Nature.... and death to Prohibition!”

Medical research journalist Tony Edwards is the author of The Good News About Booze (2013) and The Very Good News About Wine (2023).

• WHO
• Tony Edwards
• Ferreira-Borges
• Guinness 0.0
• The Good News About Booze
• The Very Good News About Wine