Each year, for three years, the challenge has been launched: “Dry January” or “January challenge”. This is a public health campaign encouraging the absence of alcohol consumption after New Year’s Eve and throughout the month of January. In the Gard, a open letter has just been sent, it comes from the Gardoise Federation of IGP wines “This initiative which, under the guise of encouraging the control of its alcohol consumption, promotes abstinence among a population that mainly consumes alcoholic beverages in moderation. Excessive consumers expressly excluding themselves from this approach. While there are real issues in France related to the excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages, this approach does not solve the problem of alcohol addiction and ultimately only stigmatizes our industry.“, is it written in the press release.
“Our ambition, for us, is to provide information on responsible wine consumption, prevent excessive consumption and risky practices. Our policy is: No to total abstinence, Yes to moderate consumption.” Gardoise Federation of IGP wines
The president of the federation, Denis Verdier, adds: “This approach is also shared by a large majority of French people since 9 out of 10 say they drink less than 10 glasses of alcohol per week, 8 out of 10 drink less than 2 glasses per occasion and 9 out of 10 do not drink every day. They thus combine user-friendliness and respect for lower-risk consumption. ”
In the Gard, “the wine production has fallen in 20 years from more than 3.5 to less than 2.5 million hectoliters“.
“From large quantities to very high quality, the Gard winegrowers are largely involved in the promotion of our IGP to advocate a strong position of responsible consumption and to promote the sector. We are counting on you to support our approach which rejects excess of total abstinence to favor moderate consumption in opposition. Let’s not fall into the extreme, let’s stay within reason. ” Denis verdier
To be complete, in fact, the operation did still not entitled to state support unlike similar campaigns against smoking. “We have no government assistance (and) we are still without means“, underlined a few days ago with AFP the lawyer Claude Rambaud, vice-president of the federation of associations France Assos Santé, which oversees this campaign.”The idea is to try to take this break, but the campaign is not at all judgmental: everyone can try to measure their relationship to alcohol during that month.“, she explains again, fearing, however, a difficult context with the Covid-19 pandemic which continues in an anxiety-provoking atmosphere.
It is the same principle as the “Tobacco-free month”, launched each year in the fall, with a small nuance: the Dry January does not aim to definitively encourage total abstinence. “it launches a momentum“, explains Claude Rambaud.