The booze issue.....

[R1Geezer]

OK so the government are introducing anti drinking measures, 50p per unit minimum etc
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8446799.stm
Anyway when the licensing laws where deregulated, myself and others thought it was a good idea that we can now be treated like grown ups and have a drink whenever we like. I thought there would be a sort of "kid in sweetshop" phase then it would all settle down and we'd start being more sensible, more like the continental approach. However I was wrong, it's now becomming clear that a lot of us cannot be sensible about it and the governement is acting. So why is it that we have this relationship with drink in the UK when across the ditch they seem far more sensible? What went wrong in the British approach? With 24 hour availability it should have curtailed the "rush to get ratted" approach. What went wrong?

[Ankou]

jno, saying

"the French drink wine and there is a culture of enjoying and appreciating it rather than seeing how much you can drink."

is like saying:

the english are all pished up airheads with a penchant for binge drinking and weeing in the streets

might be true in the main, but not for everyone ?

[jno]

oh, absolutely, Ankou.

I meant 'everyone but me'.

[Ankou]

and me.

except the weeing bit.

[jake-the-peg]

Looks like sqad's got his rose coloured specs on again

I was a binge drinker in the 80's and I wasn't on my own!

There were also no shortage of people getting tanked up and going for a fight on the football terraces

[Ankou]

i think there was a bit of a lull in the 80s - certainly it happened, i was there as well - but alot of yoof down my manor went off to fields to do drugs and have a rave. alcohol was quite rare at these.

this caused a problem to inner city drinking dens of the time so the birth of alcopops and drinks with caffeine/sugar for the equivalent 'high' were heavily marketed to tempt the yoof back into the towns and away from the rave tents. ebeneezer goode.

[Sqad]

jake...you certainly have taken a dislike to my "Rose Coloured Spectacles".

As I quoted 35years ago would make it the 70's and your posting quoted the 80's..........??

Read my postings again jake....I stated that we ALL went through that drunken phase.....my point was the difference was that the sheer numbers and alcohol related violence seen in the A&E depts in the 70's compared with now, showed the problem is barely now under control.

[Ankou]

perhaps we just hear about it more now becaus the mail says all youths are evil and should be under constant surveillance ?

[Sqad]

Ankou...believe me there is a difference. In the 60's drunks that did attend Casualty were often "observed" in a side ward.......now, that would be impossible due to the numbers treated at weekends. It is a big medical problem as well as a social one.

jake and many others fail to see this and for that I am bewildered.

That is the problem (if you think that there is a problem) but what is more difficult, is what is the solution?

[ludwig]

//Anyway when the licensing laws where deregulated, myself and others thought it was a good idea that we can now be treated like grown ups and have a drink whenever we like//.

Yes, I was one of those who thought this and still do. I don't believe that the problems with alcohol abuse are related to relaxing the licensing hours. It's more a general trend which was happening long before this, to do with the increased availability of cheap booze, and changes in drinking habits away from consuming beer in pubs towards consuming wine in the home and also spirits and alcopops.
I'm quite happy for the government to increase tax on this - I think price is the only thing that's going to control it. If responsible drinkers (I count myself among those) are penalised, so be it, It's a price I'm happy to pay if there's a chance of getting drunken teenagers off the streets and reducing damage to peoples health and the associated costs of that to all of us.