ABSTRACT
The current upward trend in global consumption has led to the need to pay increasing attention to the prevention of alcohol problems at an individual, community, national and global level. Since, this strategy states, alcohol consumption is a necessary prerequisite of alcohol problems, these problems could easily be eliminated if alcohol consumption ceased. A simple cause and effect logic lies behind them, a logic persuasive enough to have ensured, for example, that other, less hot-headed countries, such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, have also from time to time taken very seriously the idea that beverage alcohol should be banished from their shores. Even the temperance movement, which might have drawn strength from its temporary success in securing the introduction of Prohibition in America, inevitably suffered a major and possibly irretrievable setback at the time of Repeal. Developing social policy always involves establishing priorities.
