The Ontario Public Health Association … cites multiple studies showing that increases in the number of places where alcohol can be bought in Ontario, and in other jurisdictions, have already led to more consumption and more of the harms that come with it, such as suicides, drunk driving, emergency-room visits and higher rates of cancer.
I enjoy booze, but I like that it’s hard to get. I don’t need any more encouragement to mess up my liver.
It’s sad that our regulations about alcohol sales are so restrictive, but it’s unfortunately very necessary because of how our built environment exists. It’s correlated with drunk driving deaths because there’s not enough ways to get home that aren’t driving. We can’t really fix one without the other. I’d love to have a European-style picnic with wine I bought at the store on the corner, but that means at least 10% of the people on the road are going to be drunk driving at any given time which isn’t ideal.
I lived in an EU city in the mid/late 00s, and one of the nicest things was never having to worry about who was the DD. It wasn’t a big city, and quite compact. Walk 15 minutes and multiple pub and restaurant options. The equivalent of CAD$25 including tip would get you and 3-4 friends out and back to a respectable chunk of the city.
Yo can buy wine and beer in corner stores and drink in parks all over Quebec and it’s not a problem. Ontario isn’t different, except for the persistent smell of prohibition (which started in Ontario!).
They said the same thing about weed stores and there hasn’t been any increase in accidents.
Those who want to drink will drink, making it more accessible won’t change that. It’ll be nice not having to drive multiple kilometres to get a sixpack.
There’s also the increased suicides, emergency room visits, and cancer rates.
Access to alcohol is fine, but it shouldn’t be encouraged. A little bit of friction discourages access, and helps people moderate themselves.
I’ve lived in quite a few places in my life and those that have the worst alcohol problems are the most restrictive ones. Restricting means more binge drinking, there’s a lot of empirical evidence showing that.
Perhaps it’s high time our government stops treating us like irresponsible children.
The relationship probably isn’t causal!! How do you know that it isn’t simply the case that the places with the worst alcohol problems adopt the strongest restrictions?
“I don’t like feeling like someone is treating me like a child,” is both an unhelpful way of interpreting the situation – no one is treating anyone like a child, they are treating them like human beings who are subject to addiction and lapses in judgement while intoxicated (so much worse than children) – and also a really poor and selfish reason to inflict the negative effects that do correlate with increased availability on other people.
This means we’d actually have to make our justice system actually punish drunk and careless driving. The best way to commit murder in Canada is with a car, you will get out in a couple of years!
