The Daily Mail reports that "Up to 70 per cent of visits to hospital casualty departments are alcohol-related."
In recent years the licensing laws have been relaxed and at the same time alcoholic drink has become more affordable, with supermarkets often using drink as a loss leader. In particular, more and more young people are indulging in binge-drinking, which tends these days to be regarded as a normal part of a night out. And there is now no longer any social taboo on young women getting drunk and shedding usual inhibitions.
There are many contributory factors to this worrying trend: more divorce and breakdown of the family, a politically-engineered widespread culture of dependency, the sometimes malign influence of television drama, the glamorisation of drink in advertisements, the increasing use of drugs both legal and illegal in everyday life, a live now pay later outlook, and so on.
Increasingly mothers who drink too much during their pregnancy are giving birth to babies seriously and permanently harmed by foetal alcohol syndrome.
I think that the licensing laws should be tightened up again and alcohol taxed more heavily. But really the powers-that-be need to bring their collective wisdom to bear on this urgent matter. Our country cannot afford the individual suffering and the collective cost of the illness and disability that result from alcohol abuse.
Written by Margaret Wilde
Margaret is the author of www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
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