My wife and I were at a university reunion last week. Twenty years on from our days of wine and roses, our contemporaries were looking well. Inevitably many of our reminiscences involved occasions when, as my Ulster Presbyterian forebears would say, strong drink had been taken.
I certainly hope that no undercover agents from the World Health Organization were present, listening to our stories and tutting. At a panel discussion at the General Assembly of the UN this week, Dr Saia Piukala, the WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, set out his case for increasingly heavy restrictions on alcohol. It wasn’t quite a roadmap to Prohibition, but it wasn’t far off. He praised countries which have been steeply increasing alcohol taxes, and noted with pride that he had banned booze completely from all WHO events within his region.
