Experts, Advice and Alcohol
16th Mar 2009 18:34:36
We need to face up to the fact that the country has a serious alcohol problem. Who better to talk about this problem than the Chief Medical Officer? I mean, "Chief" implies that he's risen high in his field, and "Medical" there meaning that he has some sort of knowledge about drugs, medicine and their effects on the body. You might want to infer from the word "Officer" that his knowledge was respected enough for him to be offered a job with the Government. Not respected enough to be listened to, though, clearly. To hell with experts, what the hell do they know, says Brown.
The minimum price/unit is one of the best ideas for combating binge drinking that won't affect the millions of men and women across the country. Saving me from doing any maths, the Independent did some number crunching and concluded:
Liam Donaldson said the Government should set a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, which would nearly double the price of some discount beer and wine.
Donaldson said the plans would mean a bottle of wine could not be sold for less than £4.50, a bottle of whisky for less than £14 and a six pack of 500 ml cans of lager for less than £6.
Liam Donaldson is the Government's Chief Medical Officer. The one they're ignoring, but we covered that already. Astonishingly, while alcohol consumption has fallen in many European countries since 1970, consumption of alcohol in England is up by 40%. Drink-related illness costs the country £3bn annually, and the total cost to the taxpayer for alcohol misuse is estimated to be £25bn a year. We've ignored the problem for long enough, and we have to do something.
Irresponsible alcohol promotions by clubs is a major part of this. I'm sure we all know our local clubs' deals, and we all know the amount of alcohol they'll sell on "special offers". Astonishing 'girls drink free' or '£10 for unlimited drinks', etc. have fueled drunken violence throughout the country on Friday and Saturday nights.
A minimum price will not affect the sensible drinker much but will affect those who are drinking dangerous amounts, damaging their health, making our town centres no-go areas at nights, and contributing massively to crime, anti-social behaviour, assaults and vandalism.
We have the 10th highest alcohol level in the world, and 40% of young drinkers exceed the recommended limits, by the Government's own statistics. I'll end with the words of Don Foster, Bath Lib Dem MP, who writes on our website regarding the fact that over 1,000 under-14's have had to be admitted to hospital last year for disorders relating to alcohol.
"These astronomical figures show once again that binge drinking is out of control in this country. When there are thousands of children in hospital for serious alcohol related conditions we cannot bury our heads in the sand about the consequences of our drinking culture.
- Don Foster, Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary
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