Minister prepared to lose friends over booze

Neither friend nor foe will stop Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi from his mission to ban alcohol advertising.

He has spent the past year threatening to halt liquor adverts and has now announced a time frame for regulations: "Next week."

"I will present parliament with [draft] legislation next week," he said.

He urged doctors and academics to support him in his plan.

The minister was speaking at the launch of two Health Systems Trust medical publications on Tuesday night in Pretoria.

"Friends will become enemies.

"Not even during apartheid was alcohol boycotted."

The Department of Trade and Industry has expressed its opposition to the advertising ban .

According to Professor Charles Parry of the Medical Research Council:

On average, alcohol abuse claims 130 South African lives a day, be it through road accidents or liver diseases. As alcohol reduces sexual inhibitions, it can be linked to HIV/Aids as well;

Alcohol abuse is estimated to cost the country R38-billion a year, far more than the R2-billion spent on alcohol advertising; and

The World Health Organisation estimates lifestyle diseases will become the biggest killer and health expense worldwide by 2030.

In Motsoaledi's bid to reduce lifestyle diseases, he has already signed into law regulations to reduce the salt content in bread by 2017 and has banned unhealthy trans fats from food.

In 2011, before a UN conference on lifestyle diseases, Motsoaledi pledged to:

Cut drinking by 20% per person in South Africa by 2020;

Reduce tobacco use by 20%; and

Reduce premature mortality (younger than 60) rates resulting from lifestyle diseases by 25% by 2020.

According to Parry, when Thailand banned alcohol advertising, it saw a 12% decline in the number of people who consumed alcohol between 2004 and 2007. There was also a 31% drop in traffic accidents between 2004 and 2009.

Cape Town's plan to stop the sale of alcohol in restaurants and bars on Sundays was halted last week after the city said the ban would cause economic harm.

Gauteng draft regulations to prevent the sale of alcohol on Sundays might also be scrapped. Gauteng economic head Phindile Kunene said on Tuesday that most of the feedback on the draft regulations was negative .