Government's 'blame the kids' is not social policy

The bullshit 'blame the kids' line the Government are spinning to defend their piss weak response to booze is made even more pathetic in the wake of information that the booze industry muscled National into this weak response in the final month before the decision was due.

The Government spent so much political capital while in opposition convincing NZers that any social policy was 'nanny state political correctness gone mad' that they now can not implement any social policy whatsoever.

For those who say price can't change patterns of consumption comes this news today...

Dramatic slump in stores' cigarette sales
Demand for tobacco has fallen 15 per cent at supermarkets since the tax rise in April - a far greater reduction than expected.

"It's extraordinary," public health physician Dr Murray Laugesen said yesterday, commenting on supermarket sales figures supplied to him by research company ACNielsen.

Based on earlier tax increases, a tobacco price rise of 10 per cent would have been expected to reduce sales by 5 per cent.

...and the point of Supermarkets using booze as a loss leading product that is harming the society we live in was made perfectly clear today by Professor Sellman...

Supermarkets are drug pushers, says lobbyist
Supermarkets are drug "pushers" who are selling high quantities of discounted wine and should be viewed the same as dealers dishing out Ecstasy pills or morphine.

It may seem extreme but it's a view that Professor Doug Sellman, director of the National Addiction Centre and spokesman for the Alcohol Action Group, is taking quite seriously.

Professor Sellman believes the Government should remove alcohol from supermarket shelves and limit the amount of advertising operators are allowed for liquor, among many changes he hopes might alter people's attitudes to drinking.

Think it's over the top? He will tell you that's because you have been brainwashed into downplaying our excessive consumption of alcohol.

In a three-month study of advertising in the Herald, the Dominion Post, the Press and the Otago Daily Times, Professor Sellman said New World was the country's biggest "drug pusher" because it had the most alcohol-related advertising.

He said the sale of alcohol in supermarkets made it cheaper and easier to get, which meant more people would use it.

Some supermarkets also sold alcohol below cost to lure customers in, which was contributing to the problem.

...by blaming da kids when research shows the majority of NZs heavy drinkers are over 25 years of age, this gutless Government have simply put industry booze profits ahead of the well being of NZers, and all because they don't want to wake the Nanny State Political Correctness Monster they built in the minds of their weak and frightened supporters.

Let's make Simon Power's glass of hypocrisy a double shall we? Oh and the less said about Judith Collins embarrassing attempt to defend allowing the Police to drink themselves into a stuper in unlicensed Police Bars the better.