An LSE Guide On How To Denormalise Alcohol Like Tobacco

As if deliberately trying to embarrass Deborah Arnott and her laughable slippery slope denial, Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling Paul Cairney has written on the LSE website what is effectively a guide to how anti-alcohol miseries can achieve the same as the tobacco control industry in coming decades.

He begins by explaining how prohibitionists 'select' evidence. Or 'lie', as it is known to the rest of us (emphases mine).

Evidence based policymaking (EBPM) is about power: to decide what counts as evidence; to ignore or pay attention to particular studies; to link the evidence of a policy problem to a particular solution; and, to ensure that policymakers have the motive and opportunity to turn a solution into policy. Indeed, an attempt to portray EBPM as a technical or scientific process is often an attempt to exercise power: to rule some evidence in and most evidence out; and, to use particular forms of evidence to justify political action.

Yep, that's about the sum of it. It should, of course, more accurately be called PBEM - policy based evidence-making.

After describing how tobacco was in the same popular position 30 years ago as alcohol is now, he makes observations on how alcohol can follow the same denormalisation route in the future.

The tobacco experience suggests that changes in these factors are mutually reinforcing; major policy change is the result of the complex interplay between all of these processes. For example, an increased acceptance of the unequivocal alcohol-is-harmful scientific evidence would help shift the way that governments ‘frame’ or understand the alcohol policy problem.  The framing of alcohol as a public health problem would allow the health department to take the policy lead and consult primarily with public health groups.  Alcohol control and alcohol use may also go hand in hand: a decrease in drinking rates reduces the barriers to alcohol control; more alcohol control means fewer drinkers (or less drinking).  The replacement of voluntary alcohols with statutory measures would reduce the routine involvement of the industry in government.

He has even provided a very handy visual guide with a doodled flowchart! (click to enlarge)

Now, let's once again revisit Deborah's departure from the realms of reality, shall we?

[...] the “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.

Course it is, love.

University Professors writing on the website of the London School of Economics about exactly how (and when) it will be done is just part of a vast Big Tobacco funded libertarian conspiracy. 

Nurse!