Eight of the UK’s largest alcohol producers have today launched a new organisation to promote their work in addressing alcohol misuse.
The role of the Alcohol Information Partnership (AIP) will be to ensure that the conversation around alcohol and alcohol abuse “remains balanced”. It will remind consumers, the media and other stakeholders that the majority of the British public drinks responsibly, and that irresponsible drinking is on the decline – particularly among young people, where there has been a reduction in underage drinking. Long-term harmful drinking, it said, had also fallen.
AIP will promote the current partnership approach taken to tackle alcohol misuse through coordinated action between government, industry, local authorities and non-governmental organisations. The existing system focuses on education, enforcement and targeted initiatives, and the AIP has said that the steady fall in alcohol misuse suggests this approach is producing effective results. It called for “more of what works” in continuing to resolve problems around alcohol in the future.
The partnership will be led by Dave Roberts and is funded by the alcoholic beverage producers Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Campari, Bacardi, Brown-Forman, Remy-Cointreau, Moët Hennessy and Beam Suntory.
AIP director general Dave Roberts said: “Alcohol misuse is an incredibly serious issue. As a society, we should continue to have a rigorous debate about how best we continue to tackle and reduce alcohol misuse. But the debate has become increasingly imbalanced and characterised by poor representation of the evidence. Too often the facts have been dramatised or exaggerated in order to scare people and skew the debate. The reality is that binge drinking is in decline in the UK – particularly among young people – and the vast majority of people enjoy a drink responsibly.
“The Alcohol Information Partnership is here to bring balance back to the debate and remind the public that having a drink at home or in the pub can still be a part of a balanced lifestyle as long as it is drunk in moderation.”
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