Surprise! Non-drinkers support more restrictions on alcohol, but minimum unit pricing might be a hard sell

I've been meaning to read the results from the Alcohol Use in New Zealand study for some time, given that they were released near the start of the year. In particular, I was interested in this bit on public attitudes on policy interventions. The report is brief (four pages), and reports on results from a representative survey of over 4500 New Zealand adults undertaken last year (the methodology is described in a separate report).

Anyway, the results are interesting because they ask to what extent people support various interventions drawn from the WHO's SAFER initiative:

• (S) Strengthen restrictions on alcohol availability;
• (A) Advance and enforce drink driving countermeasures;
• (F) Facilitate access to screening, brief interventions and treatment;
• (E) Enforce bans or comprehensive restrictions on alcohol advertising, sponsorship, and promotion; and
• (R) Raise prices on alcohol through excise taxes and pricing policies.

In relation to the first intervention, they found that:

Four in five (83%) respondents supported tightening restrictions on drink driving by making the penalties harsher. Women... were more likely... to show support.

Those who didn’t drink in the last week... were also more likely to show support to this policy.

However, there was lower support (48%) for changing the blood alcohol limit when driving to zero. More likely to show support were women...

Non-drinkers... were also more likely to express support.

For the second intervention:

Three-quarters (76%) of respondents supported banning the promotion of alcohol from social media that under 18-year-olds use...

Women... were more likely to express support, along with non-drinkers...

Three in five (62%) respondents supported banning alcohol sponsorship at sporting, community and other events that under 18-year-olds go to...

More likely to show support were women... Non-drinkers... were also more likely to express support.

Are you beginning to see a pattern? For the other three interventions:

Three in five (60%) respondents supported requiring health professionals to regularly ask patients about their drinking.

Women... and non-drinkers were more likely to express support. 

Just over half (54%) of respondents supported having fewer places selling alcohol in the local community.

More likely to express support were women... and non-drinkers.

One in three (33%) respondents supported raising the minimum price of alcohol.

More likely to show support were women...

Non-drinkers... were also more likely to support the policy.

In fact, it appears that for every single policy intervention that people were asked about, non-drinkers were more likely to support those interventions (and so were women). In terms of non-drinkers, it's pretty easy to support a policy when you expect to face none of the costs of the policy once it's implemented. It would have been interesting to see how much support there was among drinkers for these policy interventions, although I expect that you then get exactly the opposite problem (since drinkers face all of the costs of the policy)!

Putting aside the difference in preferences between drinkers and non-drinkers (and men and women) for the moment, the relative ranking of the various interventions is interesting. I don't know whether the differences in ranking are statistically significant, but taking the headline results, the interventions can be ranked in terms of public preferences:

1. Stricter penalties for drink driving (83%)
2. Banning the promotion of alcohol from social media (76%)
3. Banning alcohol sponsorship at events (62%)
4. Requiring health professionals to ask about drinking (60%)
5. Having fewer places selling alcohol (54%)
6. Lowering the blood alcohol limit for driving to zero (48%)
7. Raising the minimum price of alcohol (33%)

I don't know about the feasibility of doing #2, but the others with more than 50% support are certainly feasible (as are the other two interventions with less than majority support). It would also be interesting to see if the relative ranking was the same for both drinkers and non-drinkers.

The distinct lack of support for raising the minimum price is interesting as well, given that it has been a policy favoured in some other countries, like Scotland. Wales implemented a minimum price last year, and the Republic of Ireland will introduce minimum pricing from 1 January 2022. Economists aren't typically in favour of price controls, but in this case minimum pricing may actually be more efficient. As Paul Calcott (Victoria University of Wellington) showed in this 2019 article published in the Journal of Health Economics (sorry, I don't see an ungated version online), the combination of minimum unit pricing with an excise tax may be optimal:

...when relatively cheap forms of alcohol are undertaxed, and the quality and quantity of alcohol are substitutes.

The numerical example that Calcott provides suggests that heavier drinkers may be undertaxed (while lighter drinkers might be undertaxed), because heavier drinkers pay no more per ounce of alcohol than lighter drinkers do. The article is quite mathematical, so not for the faint of heart. My takeaway from Calcott's article was that there was modest support for minimum unit pricing, since it would affect the heaviest drinkers the most. However, clearly there is little support from the public for this intervention.

The question now, is whether the government has any appetite to revise alcohol laws and implement any of the policy interventions that do appear to have majority support.