While the spotlight here in Canada has lately been focused on the legalization of Marijuana (officially coming next Wednesday), there remains a worldwide concern over Tobacco and Alcohol consumption. And new figures from the UK indicate that Booze may be falling out of fashion…
A growing room at the giant Tweed Cannabis plant in Smith’s Falls, Ontario, Canada,
about 4 hours east of Toronto in the scenic Rideau Lakes district. By crazy
coincidence, the facility is a former Hershey’s Chocolate factory,
retro-fitted to turn out another kind of ‘sinful indulgence’.
“What? And with a pub on every corner?” I hear you say. But it’s true, and it may hold true for young people across the western world. Researchers say the implications of their survey are likely ‘widespread’.
What they did…
As is the case with many survey-type research projects thee days, researchers at University College London analysed data from the annual Health Survey for England, focusing on results for the decade from 2005 to 2015, looking at self-reported drinking activities by young people ages 16 to 24.
What they found…
They found that the ranks of young adults who said they didn’t drink Alcohol had dropped from 29 percent in 2005 to just 18 percent in 2015.
Dr. Linda Ng Fat, Corresponding Author of the study said: “Increases in non-drinking among young people were found across a broad range of groups, including those living in northern or southern regions of England, among the white population, those in full-time education, in employment and across all social classes and healthier groups. That the increase in non-drinking was found across many different groups suggests that non-drinking may be becoming more mainstream among young people, which could be caused by cultural factors.”
Increases in non-drinking however were not found among ethnic minorities, those with poor mental health and smokers suggesting that the risky behaviours of smoking and alcohol continue to cluster.
The takeaway…
Whatever the impetus, a drop in drinking by the young is, first and foremost, welcome news for the health care sector can look forward to dealing with decreasing levels of Alcohol-related illnesses and disease over the coming decades. The effect will be amplified if, as Ng Fat suggests, non-drinking may, in fact, go mainstream.
What the brewers, distillers and vintners have to say about that remains to be seen. We might well guess, with some certainty, that they will take any reduction in drinking as bad news. And there are a lot of jobs and mega tax revenues to be lost if people stop drinking en masse. But that’s another story for another time.
Yes, but…
As Dr. Malcom (Jeff Goodblum) tells his companions on his return to Jurassic Park: “Nature always finds a way!”
And, as we all know, Nature abhors a vacuum. So… Given that there’s a (social) vacuum on the intoxicants front, what will pour in to fill the void? It looks as though the new intoxicant of choice – for both the young and the Boomers – is going to be Marijuana/Weed/Pot/Cannabis.
As I mentioned earlier, Cannabis and associated products will become legal for recreational use here in Canada, across the country, next week. Many folks are cheering the long-awaited relaxation of the law, but others are warning legal Weed may turn out to be more problematic than Alcohol.
For one thing, a recent study on the possible permanent deleterious effects on the brain of Pot was declared ‘inconclusive’. I.e.- the jury is still out, re.- a cause-and-effect connection.
Curiously, it appears aging Baby Boomers are turning to Weed in their ‘golden’ years to help alleviate the aches, pains and other inconveniences of advanced age.
And another new study suggests that Marijuana may be even more harmful to the still-maturing brains of teens than Alcohol.
I guess we each must make up our own mind about Weed. There’s a load of information about the clinical aspects of Cannabis consumption at the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse and Addiction (CCSAA) website.
We’ll keep you up to date on the Canadian experience with massive legalization of Weed as it unfolds.
~ Maggie J.