Alcohol making the news in Britain

by julianw | July 2, 2008 at 01:04 pm | 262 views | 2 comments

The media has recently been filled with stories about Britain's high levels of alcohol abuse and failed efforts to combat dangerous drinking, and NowPublic contributor LotusFlower today posted an especially sobering statistic: that Britain has one of the highest rates of drunk-driving in Europe.

Britain’s motorists are among the worst in Europe for drink driving, it has been reported. A new study shows that Britain has the third highest rate of drink driving with 6% of drivers getting behind the wheel while over the limit.
Britain was topped only by Switzerland, with 6.6%, and Moldova with a whopping 19%, while the average across Europe was in fact just 1.7%. Research by the road policing group Tispol found that 829 drivers tested positive among almost 14,000 breath tests carried out in Britain.

In its latest effort to combat alcohol abuse, the government today proposed a new tax on liquor.

Britain’s pubs have never had it so bad. First it was the smoking ban, then a curb on live shows, and now, heavier taxes on alcohol - the latest step to check violence. If the government has its way, the taxes will rocket by around 31 percent in the next five years. So a pint of beer will cost 3.18 pounds or 3.38 pounds, depending on whether the pub is in a small town or in London.

Patrons will no longer get the cheapest bottle of wine for under 3 pounds. The price will go up by as much as 1.71 pounds.

As to the single malts and other exotic forms of ambrosia, just do not think about it.

The plan, unveiled in a Department of Health document, will see tax on a typical 2.68-pound pint rise from 39 pence now to 51 pence in 2013, reports the Daily Mirror.

The government says the move is aimed at discouraging public drinking, the biggest source of pub and street violence in Britain.

Critics argue that England's 2003 Licensing Act, a measure that legalized 24 hour drinking in an effort to promote a European-style cafe culture in British pubs and bars, has been counterproductive.

The introduction of 24 hour drinking has failed to reduce alcohol-fuelled violence and has left council tax payers with a £100 million bill, a damning new report says.

""The new drinks laws have made no impact whatsoever on reducing the alcohol-related violence that blights town centres and turns them into no-go areas on a Friday and Saturday night.

"The vast majority of local councils, police and hospitals have reported no change at all, with violent incidents generally just being shifted later into the evening." Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}

Finally, although pubs are the key villains in Britain's alcohol abuse drama, supermarkets deserve some of the blame as well, according to a recent Telegraph story.

Shops could be forced to raise the basic cost of alcoholic drinks by a third or more, as part of plans to make it harder for young people to access cheap alcohol.

Ministers at Westminster are considering plans similar to those already put forward in Scotland, to impose a minimum price for alcohol.

Any legislation could see English supermarkets and corner shops ordered to charge a minimum of between 35p and 40p per unit.

The move is aimed at curbing the binge-drinking culture among teenagers, who according to recent figures drink more than youngsters in most other developed countries.

At the moment some supermarkets sell a can of beer for as little as 23p, and a bottle of cider for 59p.

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milenanelim

at 20:11 on July 2nd, 2008

Drink is part of many young people's past-time. In a way, as many of today's social problems, the problem of excessive drinking is not dramatically more serious than in the past: it has just become more visible. The increased social sensitivity, of course, does not make it less important, quite on the contrary. The trouble is that drinking, like smoking and light drugs, is ambivalent: it is a customary and often essential part of many modes of social interaction, but in the process - very slowly - harms our bodies, minds - and futures - far more than we can imagine, especially at a young age.

Nonetheless, banning alcohol is in no way a solution. Authoritative governmental and market restrictions would only make alcohol more attractive to consumers: remember what happened in the USA during the Prohibition in the early 20th century. One look at clubs on university campuses shows that most of the serious alcohol casualties are freshers who feel free after having been kept off drinking in one way or another until then.

Until alcohol is associated with cool-ness and having fun in a naughty way, its popularity will not cease - moreover, when invisible peer-pressure is involved, and the imagined losses incurred by drinking are negligible to the imagined gains (e.g. having a good time while being one of the gang).

milenanelim has contributed a photo to this story.