Re: Dawn Primerola on 'Booze Britain' teen drinkers!

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:26:56 +0000, JNugent
<not.telling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Alan Hope wrote:

Ed goes:
Maria <mariathom...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Bushwack Bill (Pete's sidekick)"
<andar...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Was on TV yesterday (she's New Labour) - when she was on Radio4 she
was asked about 'French-style cafe culture' which we were promised by
New Labour after 24-hour drinking was introduced - she became rather
annoyed at the mention of it! :-D

She actually says that binge drinking is not a problem - that the
biggest health damage is done by middle-classes drinking at home.
Soft target again?

Surely everyone binge drinks as a teenager and well into their
thirties if they can manage it? I remember at uni downing a bottle of
wine before even contemplating the union bar.

Britain is the only country in the world where people start drinking
as a preparation to going out drinking. Except maybe Ireland.

Speak for yourself.

But even if that were true, it wouldn't be any of the gummint's business.

You might like to peruse the Nuffield Council of Bioethics report that
states that drinking alcohol harms other people due to the anti-social
behaviour it causes. They have lumped it together with smoking.
They say it is government's business because government has a duty to
care for the health of citizens.
cohol and tobacco
Alcohol and tobacco are enjoyed legally by many people in the UK and
other countries. Low to
moderate intake of alcohol does not cause demonstrable harm and has
even been suggested to
have some health benefits. Excessive alcohol consumption18 is
extremely harmful to the health of
consumers themselves and is often linked to problems of public safety
that impact upon third
parties. For tobacco, regular smoking of even a small number of
cigarettes is harmful to the health
of the smoker and people around them. Drinking alcohol and smoking are
among the highest risk
factors for mortality and morbidity (paragraphs 6.4?6.7). Given these
and other similarities, we
consider alcohol and tobacco together in this case study.
People in socio-economic groups with fewer resources are
disproportionately affected by the
harms caused by alcohol and tobacco and, therefore, under the
stewardship model, public health
policies in this area should aim to reduce these health inequalities
(see paragraphs 2.27?2.32). They
should also aim to pay special attention to the health of children and
other vulnerable groups.

18 In this Report we use ?excessive? alcohol consumption to refer to
drinking that leads to alcohol use disorders as defined in the
Alcohol Needs Assessment Research Project (ANARP). This Report used
the World Health Organization categorisation of
alcohol use disorders which specifies three categories: ?hazardous
drinking?, people drinking above recognised ?sensible? levels
but not yet experiencing harm; ?harmful drinking?, people drinking
above ?sensible? levels and experiencing harm; and ?alcohol
dependence?, people drinking above ?sensible? levels and experiencing
harm and symptoms of dependence.

Role of government and public services
Considerable harm to others is caused by people who have consumed
excessive amounts of
alcohol (paragraphs 6.10?6.11), and governments have acted to reduce
this harm by
implementing certain coercive measures, such as prohibiting driving or
operating machinery with
a blood-alcohol level over prescribed limits. These measures are
publicly accepted and appropriate
authorities enforce them. Further measures could be implemented that
reduce harms to
individuals themselves as well as to other people. The stewardship
model provides justification
for the UK Government to introduce measures that are more coercive
than those which currently
feature in the National Alcohol Strategy (2004 and 2007).
Recommendation 14: We recommend that evidence-based measures judged
effective in the
WHO-sponsored analysis Alcohol: No ordinary commodity19 are
implemented by the UK
Government. These include coercive strategies to manage alcohol
consumption, specifically in
the areas of price, marketing and availability. For example, taxes on
alcoholic beverages could be
increased, which has been shown to be an effective strategy for
reducing consumption. We also
recommend that the Home Office, the UK health departments and the
Department of Culture,
Media and Sport analyse the effect of extended opening hours of
licensed premises on levels of
consumption, as well as on anti-social behaviour. (Paragraph 6.31)
As with alcohol, the harm to others caused by tobacco smoking
justifies the implementation of
coercive measures.

http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/fileLibrary/pdf/Public_health_ethical_issues.pdf


PS: I've never been there and don't expect to ever go there, but I
hear these tales about drinkers in Iceland (and one or two other
Scandinavian spots) that make a Saturday night in Middlesborough look
a Hove Sunday afternoon tea-dance.

.

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