Government response to record levels of alcohol illness...
...Which is chronicled here.
Bringing in 24-hour drinking. Marvellous.
Now I know the nanny state et al is not good, but surely we should not allow people the freedom to drink themselves stupid? These statistics really are shocking, if not altogether surprising, as said by one Doctor in the article:
Hospital admissions for alcoholic liver disease more than doubled in a decade, reaching 35,400 in 2004/5. Alcoholic liver disease deaths increased by 37%.
Admissions for alcoholic poisoning increased to 21,700 from 13,600 over the same 10-year period.
The Information Centre report also highlights England's binge and underage drinking problem.
Nearly one in four secondary school children aged 11-15 reported that they had drunk alcohol in the past week when surveyed in 2005.
The average amount of alcohol consumed by this age group doubled between 1990 and 2000 and currently remains at 10.4 units (or about 10 small glasses of wine or five pints of beer) per week.
Young adults are the most likely to binge drink - a third of men and a quarter of women aged 16-24 said they had drunk more than double the recommended number of units on one day of the previous week, typically Saturday, when surveyed in 2004.
Not sure what the answer is (higher taxes, possibly?) but it definitely is NOT relaxing opening hours.
-posted by Roy
