Data shows that booze bans don t work, says drinks industry SA s drinks industry is worth about R101bn to the country s GDP. File photo. Image: Sebabatso Mosamo
SA’s drinks industry wants the government to reconsider future alcohol bans on the grounds that bans do not work but instead put livelihoods at risk.
The industry’s call comes in the wake of new data published on Thursday that claims there is no evidence the alcohol bans implemented during lockdown worked to reduce the number of trauma admissions to hospitals or that they curbed the spread of Covid-19.
“You have to be extremely careful making the claim for causality,” said independent data expert Ian McGorian who, along with Prof Mike Murray from the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, conducted the analysis.
For more than 140 days over the past 12 months, South Africans were unable to legally buy booze due to COVID-19 restrictions. The divisive regulation was practically unique to our nation, and following FOUR separate alcohol bans, the liquor industry has been brought to its knees. And yet, after all that… it might have all been a complete waste of our time.
South Africa trauma numbers ‘not driven by booze limitations’
A new study has poked some massive holes in the government’s logic. Those serving in the National Coronavirus Command Council have consistently argued that trauma cases in our hospitals decline when an alcohol ban is in place – yet their reasoning somewhat falls apart, when you weigh our numbers against countries that did not enforce prohibition.
Amended lockdown regulations over the Easter weekend saw the number of people who could attend religious and other gatherings more than double to 250 people indoors and 500 outdoors, and, while shebeens and restaurants remained open, the offsite sale of liquor was prohibited for four days.
The apparent lack of a scientific basis for these decisions prompted the South African Liquor Brand Owners Association to release an investigative report it commissioned several months ago.
The investigation set out to interrogate the widely held view that there is a clear causal link between the three alcohol bans (excluding the recent Easter ban) and the visible and, at times, startling decline in hospital trauma admissions that occurred at the same time.
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