BERL bashing

Earlier this month, I casually dismissed BERL's Costs of Alcohol & Drugs report as rubbish. Economist blogger Eric Crampton has delved deeper into BERL's methodology and concludes:

BERL cites total social costs of $5.3 billion. $3.9 billion of that, 74%, cannot honestly be counted as policy-relevant costs from an economic perspective.

Rauparaha at TVHE also rips into the Law Commission for quoting an increase in alcohol related offences from police figures. Although the gross figure has gone up, if liquor ban breaches are removed, alcohol-related offences have actually dropped.