Regulation or personal responsibility?

It is "Europe's beating cancer plan" that polarises: In it, the EU Commission summarises what it plans to do to curb or prevent cancer in the EU. These plans will have consequences for all industries that produce, distribute or market alcoholic beverages. For this reason, the Chair of Food Law of the University of Bayreuth at the Faculty of Life Sciences: Food, Nutrition and Health together with the museums in the Mönchshof had placed their 2nd Kulmbach Beer Law Day under the motto "Alcohol and Health". Around 60 experts - scientists, representatives of the brewers' associations, the wine academy, the winegrowers' association and ministries, the economy, trade and lawyers - accepted the invitation. The meetings were held in the faculty's rooms in the "Alte Spinnerei" and in the Mönchshof in Kulmbach.

The health effects of alcoholic beverages were presented by the dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences and Chair of Nutritional Biochemistry, Prof. Dr. Janin Henkel-Oberländer. She says: "From a purely biochemical point of view, there is no that alcohol is a cytotoxin and therefore harmful to health. But just not to the same extent for everyone." The harmful effect depends on many other factors such as age, gender, weight or diet. The metabolism of each person is individual and also affects the potential for addiction. This makes it very difficult to decide how much is "too much" alcohol. Above all regular high consumption, however, can be associated with serious long-term consequences. Henkel-Oberländer provided the participants with numerous facts. 

Germany is still one of the countries with the highest alcohol consumption worldwide. According to the "Alcohol Atlas Germany", two thirds of adults in this country regularly consume alcoholic beverages, although the number of young people consuming alcohol is declining nationwide: it is 8.7% of 12 to 17 year olds, compared to 25% in 1979, according to the Federal Centre for Health Education. Nevertheless, there are 75,000 alcohol-related deaths in Germany every year. However, this figure should be taken with a grain of salt, because it dates back to 1991, as Dr. Lothar Ebbertz, General Manager of the Bavarian Brewers' Association, added . Since then, alcohol consumption per capita has dropped by about 28 %, said Ebbertz.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel, President of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, took a pragmatic, though not trivialising look at the issue. "We also have to acknowledge the reality of life and be clear: are we talking about unruly intoxicated drinking or a stimulant?" Whether prohibitions are the only way to achieve this is difficult to assess: "Because people don't like to have things they enjoy taken away from them. Regulation must have to do with conscious decision-making, not so much with coercion." Hensel pleaded for differentiated "risk communication". Especially in the media, some things are "overdramatised" - with alcohol as well as with some foods that pose no health risk. The truth, however, is that the dangers of alcohol should not be played down.

Prof. Dr. Kai Purnhagen, holder of the Chair of Food Law at the University of Bayreuth, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences and initiator of the Beer Law Day, explained what the EU is planning in concrete terms: With the "Europe's beating cancer plan", it has published an action plan for the prevention of cancer and wants to "reduce harmful alcohol consumption", among other things. Under discussion are, for example, alcohol warnings on labels, stricter rules for online advertising of alcoholic beverages, especially with the target group "youth", and a review of taxation and intra-European trade in alcoholic beverages. That the EU "may" regulate this was Purnhagen's conclusion: "Almost anything is possible as long as there is a single market connection." However, it was still unclear at what point one could speak of harmful alcohol consumption.

"The majority of people are able to decide for themselves, bans do not lead anywhere", said Kristine Lütke (FDP), member of the health committee in the Bundestag. She pleaded above all for strengthening the health literacy of citizens so that they make self-determined decisions in dealing with alcohol. Christine Röger, head of the Competence Centre for Nutrition, doubts the effectiveness of pure appeals to personal responsibility. From her daily work in nutrition education at schools, she knows how difficult prevention messages are to get across and to be implemented.

The representatives of the associations are clearly against more regulation: Julia Busse, Managing Director of Politics and Law of the German Brewers Association (Deutscher Brauer-Bund e.V.) said: "To include the protection of adults in the protection of children and young people - that is going too far. What we need above all is good education to convince people. This is where the industry makes an important contribution. Alcohol and health, this is not a field for even more regulation." Her colleague Dr. Lothar Ebbertz, General Manager of the Bavarian Brewers' Association agreed with her: "We won't get alcohol abuse under control with bans." He spoke out against the planned "lawnmower method" of alcohol policy, which would affect moderate and responsible alcohol drinkers as well as those who abuse alcohol. Instead, he pleaded for a targeted prevention of abuse, in which politics also had the brewing industry on its side.

The Director of the Research Centre for German and European Food Law (FLMR) at the University of Bayreuth, Prof. Dr. Kai Purnhagen summed up at the end: "The second Kulmbach Beer Law Day has shown the enormous pressure on the industry to act in the course of the transformation of the food systems. It is therefore all the more important that science, politics and practice exchange views constructively and contribute to the legislative process. Only in this way can sensible rules be created".