Philip Hunter
The Ban on under-15 drinking flouts science and sense
“The science is clear.” We have heard that one before in other contexts, like anthropogenic global warming, but now the assertion has come from the British government’s chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, in calling parents to prohibit their children from drinking until they are 15 and then continuing to supervise their intake until 17.
Donaldson himself seemed confused over what science he was talking about. When pressed on the Radio 4 Today programme, he admitted that small amounts of alcohol could not harm a child. Alcohol after all is a natural product of metabolism, and everybody’s metabolism has to handle a little. There is no such thing as a total teetotaller.
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Mary Fitzgerald
In vino veritas?
There’s long been speculation about the existence of a mysterious “Churchill gene” which enables some people to remain healthy and brilliant despite alcohol consumption that would kill others. Other than the great man himself, who quipped “always remember that I have taken more alcohol than it has taken out of me,” William Faulkner, Mark Twain, Graham Greene, Beethoven, Van Gough, Jason Pollock and Francis Bacon also appear to have fit the mould. Drinking, it seemed, enhanced their creativity, rather than vice versa.
But now, reports Philip Hunter in this month’s Prospect, scientists at the University of Colorado have hard evidence that 15 per cent of Caucasians have what is known as the “G-variant gene,” which makes alcohol behave more like an opiate, like morphine. This has a stronger than normal effect on mood and behaviour, prompting an endorphin release which—far from causing people to become morose or drowsy—is “positive and pleasant to behold,” lending weight to the theory of alcohol-enhanced creativity.
So, does this mean that the government should scrap its earlier advice and abandon its plans to set a minimum price of 50p per alcohol unit? Or is this “Churchill gene” a very suspect, indeed self-serving, notion? Weigh in here.
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