Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health

by David J. Nutt

New research also suggests alcohol may cause your immune system to attack your body. It seems alcohol can turn on your immune cells; they are supposed to protect you from bugs and toxins, and they do so by releasing chemicals that cause irritation in blood vessels and nerves, which can lead to pain including headaches.

The causal association is strong enough that alcoholic drinks have been classified as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer . And it’s also why the World Health Organization has decided that no level of alcohol consumption is safe.

Drinking in parliament is rife.26 Many MPs have admitted to being affected and one has even described being too incapacitated by alcohol to be able to walk through the voting chambers.27 I have argued that to allow intoxicated MPs to make decisions on issues of national importance such as going to war is outrageous. In fact, I believe MPs should be breathalysed before being allowed to vote.

20. Finally, a measure that could be a powerful tool in the implementation of the above would be to reduce the use of alcohol by politicians. It may distort their objectivity in law-making in relation to the harms of alcohol. Only allow them to vote if they have passed a breathalyser test. Get them to openly declare any association with the alcohol industry . The government’s wine cellar should be closed and the subsidy of alcohol in the Houses of Parliament stopped. Somehow though, it seems unlikely that MPs would call time on that particular perk . . .