In Scotland we have a strange relationship with alcohol and the same with tobacco although the tobacco problem has been 'kind of' resolved since the smoking ban and smokers now confine themselves to their own homes to have a nicotine fix.
Not so drinkers, they're legally entitled (as long as they're over 18) to consume has much alcohol in pubs, clubs and bars as they like and under the watchful eye of good landlords that's fine, because responsible landlords will call a halt when they think a customer has had enough. It's not an easy job being a pub landlord especially in cities where a pub can hold hundreds on a Friday or Saturday night.
Drink-sodden individuals can behave in many ways as we know, varying between just wanting to sit down and sleep to shouting abuse at anyone they see or vomiting in the street. Last night I experienced the latter and it was a young woman. Her pals were trying to help but with no success so the local police arrived and I understand she was taken off to hospital to 'sleep it off'.
That's where we have gone wrong. There's no longer any shame to being drunk in public, it seems to be something which the young think is acceptable. When I was a teenager none of us (and that's both sexes) would have dreamt of drinking to excess on a night out. Firstly we didn't have the money they have today and secondly, there was always the thought in the back of your mind about bringing disgrace on your family and friends not forgetting your own street cred.
Maybe the alcohol pricing proposal (and England are thinking about this too now but the Times says Gordon Brown will block it) will help reduce binge drinking but alcohol is used by all age groups and binge drinking goes on in all age groups, it's not only the young - but it is the young who do it in public and put others lives more at risk. The ones who binge in private put their own lives at risk. Price increasing is a very small part of the solution. Increasing the age limit to 21 was a good idea but of course knocked down by students, who insist they are never our of control in public and they are being targeted because they're young and our future. They wheel out the 19 year old soldier who can fight but can't buy a drink fable and the government falls for it. Pity they didn't ask the opinions of the under 21s in our military.
What needs to happen is a large fine to anyone found incapacitated in public, say £250 for being drunk and disorderly. I believe that drunk and disorderly is still our law but it seldom seems to be applied these day and our police use their softly softly touch of having the drunk taken to hospital and moving the responsibility and cost onto the NHS.
If you don't agree a large fine would be a deterrent, what about everyone carrying an alcohol licence card, used in a similar way to a driving licence. If you break driving laws your licence is endorsed and if you break them often enough it is removed. A similar system could apply to alcohol; we already have to show a library ticket to get books out of a library, so why shouldn't we show an alcohol licence to buy alcohol? Radical this may be but perhaps it's a radical approach which is necessary to let our society know that vomiting or abusing others on the pavement on a Saturday night is disgusting and won't be tolerated by the majority.
Moridura has his opinion along with John Redwood. Old Holborn also adds his thoughts, with his usual flamboyant style, from his cellar somewhere in England. I'm off to have another glass of wine.
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19 comments:
Rosa
In my life in the international booze business I have never seen any regime or culture control alcohol consumption by pricing or access to the bevvy; that includes Finland, Altlantic Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, the Ukraine etc.
If people want the demon stuff they will get it. They will make it themselves, which never shows up on the published statistics so the prohibitionists claim victory.
Or they will smuggle it across borders; Canada tried it, the Indians tooled themselves up greater than the RCMP and brought it across their tribal lands which bestrode the International border.
The Russians had an enormous decline in alcohol consumption (vodka) after the fall of Communism and the heavy taxes on Vodka but cirrosis of the liver (WHO statistics) continued to rise. The KGB was controlling the production in a pioneering PFI initiative that was based on the cash economy and never hit Government statistics.
In prison booze is too easy to spot so drugs are the poison of choice.
What is the price of a line of coke now? Is it near 4 alcohol units price perhaps?
We are treating the manifestation, not the reason for the epidemic.
Typical doctor two dimensional thinking but, it makes good political headlines and justification for subsidies for grant subsidies.
There is NO easy answer except education and a change in culture to one more family based and supportive of the struggle of life's varied problems.
The whole Donaldson report is to make Snotty look good by saying it won't happen yet. They get back in then punitive taxes for your "own" good. Tories do it, whinge like mad, "We didn't punish sensible drinkers". Very Gordon Snotgobbler and Labour. Spot future such machinations.
Thank you for your comments gentlemen. Most informative and I think you're right Faux Cu, it has to happen with education and parental input. Sadly I don't think that will happen in my lifetime.
MY worry is that much of the attention is being diverted onto the very visible binge drinkers on the weekends whilst the real abuse, the real shame in Scotland is the quiet alcoholism that goes on in the home with over 150,000 children reported living in households with alcohol parents, I suspect that figure is woefully underestimated.
The real damage is being done to the bright kid who wants to do well but needs to get home to make tea as mum will have fallen asleep again or the lad that just want's peace to read his book but instead has to put up with the ranting of a drunken father.
God knows what our liver disease budget will need to be in 5-10 years time, it's growing exponentially right now.
The measures announced thus far can only ever be a line in the sand but like the smoking ban, they need to be made in order to start the process.
Talk of education only is cheap.
It will take all measures to tackle this issue.
My great grand daddy and grand daddy were rum runners in Nova Scotia during prohibition there. Many places in North America are still "dry" officially. Never stopped anybody drinking. There is no way to stop people from catching a buzz.
Life is so bland and bleak for most folks that booze or drugs is the only high they get. There's no meaning to life for most folks. Just working/collecting benefits/paying bills - when you can - and waiting to die.
God - Ah need a drink.
Cheers
No no no, personal alcohol licenses will just lead on to Allowances/Quotas and the criminalisation of normal behaviour like buying a round.
As you say the Police have powers of arrest for drunk & disorderly but rarely use it. A few 'show-arrests' in town centres would probably have a quick result though custody officers would not welcome it. Likewise more stress on the Landlords responsibility not to serve drunk people. Our local supermarkets take this seriously , in fact I think the staff enjoy it.
Like you Subrosa, as younglings we rarely set out to get blotto but once in a while one of us would have too many. We would make sure that he ( always 'he' ) got home, rang his doorbell then ran away being fed up with being blamed for poor wee Jimmy being in that state.
" We didn't force it down his neck Misses, HE DID !"
Wardog thanks for your viewpoint. The 'hidden' alcoholism is a serious matter but the youngsters on the streets at weekends are the parents of the future and they need to be made responsible or their own children will continue abusing themselves.
You're right something has to be done and this pricing is a small step, but I just wish the law for drunk and disorderly was enforced far more and the police stopped pushing every drunk in the direction of A & E. Every A & E is full at weekends with drunks.
If I ever have the proverbial heart attack I hope it's not a Friday or Saturday night.
That's the thinking in a nutshell Oldrightie. Labour must think we're simple minded the way they spin it.
I knew it scunnert - lawbreakers, rum runners, what a wonderful heritage.
Aye it's true, folk will always find a way to get their buzz. I was reading somewhere recently prisoners in Scottish prisons make home brew (from what I can't imagine) but that shows you're right.
Alcoholism has affected my life with close family being victims. It's a sad disease and the price of drink is irrelevant when an addiction needs feeding.
It's either banned - Some of the problem with the weekend youngsters is that they bring the half bottle of vodka or southern comfort with them, so once the landord says no, they've still got a supply.
One landlord says they bring vodka in small water bottles and he doesn't have the right to investigate these bottles as they're the personal property of that person.
An age old problem is this but it's one which could be far better controlled by police taking a harder line.
Raise the price and they will move over to the more stronger drink.
or onto other substances
Iran has one one of the highest amount of heroin users in the world and little alcohol.
Tackling this issue by price alone is a very limited option.
Hi niko, good to see you and you're right. It's a problem that has to be tackled from many angles. As I say I think the police ought to be much firmer with public displays of drunkenness. As for stopping me having my few sherries I don't think it'll make a blind bit of difference do you?
Never thought I'd agree with Mr Xk,jwhb;jkcn/lkscn/l
But then, there you go!
Aye he does make sense doesn't he? Well done the vowel-less man.
Alcoholism is the new death wish…..thats all I have to say. we need to offer a hand to those in need of help. Help by helping others, not by ignoring the pain…
http://www.recoveryconnection.org/?utm_source=subrosa-blonde&utm_medium=pv&utm_content=zs&utm_campaign=home
Subrosa, I agree with the general tenor of your post, but would like to add the following:
I don't think the smoking ban has made a huge difference to the 'smoking rate' but as you say it's now done in a different environment, which clearly has good and bad points - for example, more exposure to passive smoking for kids who have no choice rather than consenting adults in a pub.
Also, smokers are not 'confined to their own homes', because many smoke in the streets outside pubs etc, which in particular makes the streets even less attractive late at night.
Drinkers are NOT "legally entitled to consume as much alcohol in pubs etc as they like", they shouldn't be served if they're inebriated. Of course, this law is largely disregarded, and many landlords have their "watchful eye" on profits rather than any broader social concerns. Of course, licensing councillors seem unconcerned about this either.
Another problem is that although there perhaps is more control in pubs, that's not the problem from the public perspective, which is what happens on the streets after the 'revellers' have left the pub.
Agree wholeheartedly about the policing aspect, but again the councillors and politicians seem unconcerned about the substance of policing as opposed to soundbites about more police on the streets etc. As regards shifting the problem of drunks onto the health service, this also helps keep the crime stats down ;-)
As regards the pricing issue, I agree with the general tenor of the comments here - it might make a marginal difference, but won't solve the fundamental problem.
Interesting idea about the alcohol licence, but I'm not sure about the practicality of it. Don't know if you read about an academic proposing something similar last year, but I did a blog post about it last year.
In essence I think strict enforcement of the current law is the solution, but it might need a bit of refinement - there's too much drunkeness to be dealt with with existing laws, and the whole thing is just too cumbersome to even consider it. There's been some advances with fixed penalty notices and the like, but I think that's still a bit piecemeal.
But I don't think there's really any political will to take the more direct approach, hence past Labour reforms and the proposed SNP reforms to further micro-manage things but in my opinion missing the fundamental point.
Stuart many thanks for your post, I appreciate the trouble you've taken to write it. Also I've looked at your article from December and agree with you there.
The bit about smokers - yes I know they stand on the streets but they're not endangering anyone except themselves or not nearly as much as some violent drunks (and there are plenty of them around at weekends). I wouldn't walk through Dundee city centre late on a Saturday night although I did it regularly as a teenager.
The licence was another idea, bit too radical I think.
I still believe the fixed penalty should be a BIG one. If drunks have lost the ability to feel any shame then they may find it if they were relieved of some real money and not the token £40 fines dishes out.
Indeed, there seems little political will to tackle this head on, lots of talk of course and at least the SNP are proposing something which is really little better than nothing.
Time to campaign for much bigger fines and for the police to stop their softly softly attitude.
Couldn't agree more in general terms, but I can't see much changing in terms of political will.
As for the smokers, I think there's a bit more to it than you claim, for example forcing people off the pavements, abusing passers by and even violence.
I often walk past pubs with smokers outside and feel inclined to cross the road to avoid them, as I probably would with a group of young people.
Not much fun if you live near a pub either, more noise and litter, and is also generally detrimental to the area's 'visual amenity', to use council-speak.
It's one of my pet subjects actually; I'll do a blog post on it one day, or perhaps even start a new blog on the subject ;-)
Good post - well written.
The idea of a 'Alcohol License Card' isn't bad at all. If it can be passed - hey, include Canada if a done deal.
At this time, many of us over here have been attempting for a couple of yrs now, to convince our Government Leaders of the extreme necessity for mandatory health warning labels on all liquor containers, similar to what was pushed/successfully on Cigarette packages. You good people may be painfully aware of the current 5 silent, permenant health afflictions being carried around the world, by moderate alcohol consumers. None with any forewarning signs, nor any cures at this time.
SO, if we don't warn our youth...what's going to happen, when we're all in Nursing Homes, being spoon fed & diaper'd, to our many vacant professions ?
Keep up the good work on this website !
You never know who's reading & possibly benefiting from it...
God Bless.
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