All good knock-about stuff Claude, but sadly you miss the point on this. Measures like health warnings on cigarettes and alcohol help to create a climate of de-normalisation in which it is easier for people to give up or reduce their intake. In relation to alcohol, you’d be far better off directing your fire on the drinks industry who have singularly failed to include the warnings that they promised they would, despite repeated reminders. Another example that voluntary industry schemes are not the way to go when trying to protect people’s health.

I’d be more comfortable with warnings all over my tobacco if Gov stuck huge “driving kills” stickers on every car allowed on the road.

But anyway, good points made, espesh the tax one!

#1 Andy Walker,

no doubt you’re thinking of 24/7 booze availability when you talk about the “climate of de-normalisation in which it is easier for people to give up or reduce their intake”.

Whilst generally in agreement with you I have to take exception to:

“Ask any foreigner and one of the first things they’ll tell you is that Britain’s a country of pissheads, that they’ve never spotted such massive amounts of binge drinking anywhere else and that, put next to an average Brit, Boris Yeltsin looked like a teetotal.”

This is one of those lazy tabloid assumptions that I believe to be a myth. Have you asked any foreigners or just assumed that they must think that because after all britain is in binge crisis (I read it in the mail). Drinking is a massive part of business culture in Japan (where I had the pleasure of living for a few years) and all my Austrailian friends regularly state that the English are ‘pussies’ when it comes to drink. When I lived in a house of mediteranians they always used to say that the press made the same bold claims in their own countries.

It’s very easy to say “(tut) only in Britain” when you haven’t looked anywhere else – in the same way that many Japanese believe that they are the only country that has 4 seasons.

(DISCLAIMER: it may well be that England has higher drinking problems, but if so then give us the stats – not just “ask any foreigner”)

with regards to 24/7 alcohol availiability:

a) In reality it hasn’t changed much – you try buying booze after midnight (even in London) without having to go to some awful club to do so

b) many people argue that licencing laws contributed to a climate of irresponsible drinking (knocking as much back as possible in the time allowed)

Given that i haven’t had a cigarette for over seven weeks now (i used champix for four weeks – which, whilst effective, i wouldn’t reccomend to anyone wanting to have a good nights sleep whilst quitting!) I think it is important that i am constantly reminded of the reasons i quit after 20 years.
Everytime i see someone light up in the street i want one. Everytime i see a person on telly or in a film smoking, i want one. On the other hand, i would also like to meet my grand children and not die of a horrible cancer (in that order!)
If the promotion of public health means the proliforation of health or social warnings attached to the product (that i’m ADDICTED too,) then i’m all for it. This type of promotion is, after all, aimed at problematic use by persons vulnerable to addiction or health problems that may be exasserbated by potentially dangerous products.
If it wasn’t effective then people wouldn’t be so offended by the perceived gratuitiousness of the labelling.
Addiction is a very misunderstood concept.A manufacturor of addictive products is very aware of how their product affects those who consume it and how to capitalise on the addictive nature of people in society – starting with young people.

“Have you asked any foreigners …”
No, they told me before I could even ask them.

“It’s very easy to say “(tut) only in Britain” when you haven’t looked anywhere else”

Mate I’ve lived in three different countries so…I wouldn’t say I haven’t looked elsewhere.

“you try buying booze after midnight.”
You obviously haven’t seen the 24/7 Dial-A-Booze businesses that have been mushrooming up in the last 4 or 5 years. Birmingham has quite a few and I’m sure it’s the same nationwide. I recently took this picture. One of the many supermarkets in Brum.

It’s very easy to say “(tut) only in Britain” when you haven’t looked anywhere else – in the same way that many Japanese believe that they are the only country that has 4 seasons.

It is precisely the same instinct that makes every mother in the world hiss at their badly behaved offspring ‘you never see any other children behaving like this!’

Ian’s rule of politics: The larger the media/political fuss over an issue the smaller the problem is likely to be.

Alcohol consumption has actually fallen in the UK since 2003 (excepting slight rise in 2007) and we are only tenth in the OECD for overall consumption.

[9] there are no problems – only problems of perception.

This outlook can be applied to ANY social problem nowadays.

THANKYOU IanVisits…

Some facts and not just hearsay

“You obviously haven’t seen the 24/7 Dial-A-Booze businesses that have been mushrooming up in the last 4 or 5 years. Birmingham has quite a few and I’m sure it’s the same nationwide.”

Good – I’m a responsible drinker who keeps unsociable hours. When people know they can’t buy whiskey at 1am they make sure they buy more BEFORE 1am – you can always save what you don’t drink – but when it’s sitting there on the table you are more likey to drink it than if you had to go back to the shop.

Health warnings are a compromise that favours the status quo. The industry knows they have little effect but government can appear to be doing something.

I’m intrigued that alcohol consumption has fallen recently. Other studies have expressed concern at the amounts consumed, maybe fewer people are drinking, but they drink too much?

So is this a matter for government? There is a public health issue but how great it is seems unclear. There is also an issue of crime and antisocial behaviour, especially with younger drinkers. I’d like to know whether these are issues that need central government intervention or are more local issues that can be dealt with using existing legislation.

Tom:

I think it’s just staggering how anyone can deny that alcohol abuse is going up especially amongst young people in the UK. Never underestimate the power of denial. “Not my son”, right?

Also, no-one said in the UK we drink more than elsewhere. It’s the binge drinking and booze-fuelled violence that are the issues here.

Some statistics.

Alcohol related deaths 1992-2008.

UK teenage girls and binge drinking.

UK Teenagers near top binge drinkers of Europe.

Also, a quick look at this page will tell you that:
“Alcoholic liver cirrhosis has increased by 95% since 2000, and by 36% over the last two years to 2006 and is still increasing”.

But something tells me I’m wasting my time. You’ve already made up your mind that alcohol in the UK is absolutely fine and all is under control. Amen.

The idea that Britain is a nation of piss heads is just part of the ‘Broken Britain’ narrative and should be kicked into touch. It’s just tabloid sensationalism allied to New Labout control-freakery.

We are seeing an increasing ‘medicalisation’ of morality in this country, with ever more desperate attempts to redefine normal behaviour as unhealthy and abnormal. Nobody will take these ‘health warnings’ seriously while drinking levels are set ridiculously low.

One pint of real ale a day is now enough to define me as a ‘binge drinker’. When I was a teenager a binge involved a blackout and waking up in a foreign country with the name of a member of the same sex tattoed across your arse.

I personally think it is a good idea, but as with all things it must be a multi pronged attack. Maybe instead of Warning’s add helpline numbers on packets, and bottles, so people can be signposted to the supporting agency’s?

On the arbitrary ‘limits’ plucked from the arses of ‘experts’:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article2698024.ece

“who’s ever quit smoking after reading health signs on packets of fags”

Indeed. There was even a brand that took the piss out of the health signs and called itself Death, IIRC.

I think you start to sound like Cameron, when you say:

“Ask any foreigner and one of the first things they’ll tell you is that Britain’s a country of pissheads”

[If Cameron is reading this: We are not a broken society, you are making a mistake by telling us that we are rubbish, and then asking us "rubbish" people for our vote.]

Northern Europeans in general have such a reputation, and in my experience the Finns are far worse: their spring festival every year is a serious drinking event which always results in several deaths. There are fewer Finns than Brits, and they tend to stay in Finland. Our problem is that we have a culture of travelling and an arrogance that denies that we are guests in another country.

In fairness, eradicating booze culture in Britain is no easy feat. If anything, the problem’s spiralling out of control. Ask any foreigner and one of the first things they’ll tell you is that Britain’s a country of pissheads, that they’ve never spotted such massive amounts of binge drinking anywhere else and that, put next to an average Brit, Boris Yeltsin looked like a teetotal.

“spiralling out of control, pissheads, worse than russians”

Nice hyperbole.

Why don’t we just strongly enforce the laws we have about safe consumption (i.e. Not serving the blind-drunk), the laws we have about being a twat in public spaces and the laws we have on the age of sale (I’m open to a debate about raising it). Also, the Russians drink staggeringly more than us ( about 35%), have you seen the rates of alcoholism there?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1647475.ece

Watch most British TV programmes, dramas or soaps and every other scene takes place to a background of one or more stressed out characters knocking back a shot of whisky, vodka or other.

50% of scenes in British TV show someone drinking? That’s bullshit.

Ask any foreigner…

Yeah, and? I imagine in the overwhelming majority of people it is not a problem. They pay for the alcohol with their hard-earned money (and pay the tax), get pissed and never bother another soul! My foreign friends bloody love it here, we might be pissheads, but we’re the vast majority of us are polite and friendly too.

From the article I cited:

‘“David Barker was the epidemiologist on the committee and his line was that ‘We don’t really have any decent data whatsoever. It’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t’.

“And other people said, ‘Well, that’s not much use. If somebody comes to see you and says ‘What can I safely drink?’, you can’t say ‘Well, we’ve no evidence. Come back in 20 years and we’ll let you know’. So the feeling was that we ought to come up with something. So those limits were really plucked out of the air. They weren’t really based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee.”

‘On that basis, a nation’s drinking destiny was determined. The Government accepted the recommendation and 20 years later Professor Mark Bellis, director of the North West Public Health Observatory, which produced this week’s study, felt able to say that anyone exceeding the limits was “drinking enough to put their health at significant risk”.

‘That a host of epidemiological studies had filled the intervening years with evidence to the contrary seemed not to matter one jot. Most significant, perhaps, was a study carried out by the World Health Organisation in 2000.

‘The WHO’s International Guide for Monitoring Alcohol Consumption and Related Harm set out drinking ranges that qualified people as being at low, medium or high-risk of chronic alcohol-related harm. For men, less than 35 weekly units was low-risk, 36-52.5 was medium-risk and above 53 was high-risk. Women were low-risk below 17.5 units, medium between 18 and 35 and high above 36.

‘Seven years earlier, in 1993, a study of 12,000 middle-aged, male doctors led by Sir Richard Doll and a team at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, found that the lowest mortality rates – lower even than teetotallers – were among those drinking between 20 and 30 units of alcohol each week.The level of drinking that produced the same risk of death as that faced by a teetotaller was 63 units a week, or roughly a bottle of wine a day.

‘By 1994, five studies had been published which showed that moderate amounts of alcohol gave some degree of protection against heart disease. A year later, scientists at the Institute for Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen, who studied 13,000 men and women over 12 years, found that drinking more than half a bottle of wine a day – 50 units a week – cut the risk of premature death by half.’

Sorry, my statistic should say 25% more, not 35%. I think the point still stands though.

“Ask any foreigner and one of the first things they’ll tell you is that Britain’s a country of pissheads, that they’ve never spotted such massive amounts of binge drinking anywhere else and that, put next to an average Brit, Boris Yeltsin looked like a teetotal.”

A good reason not to base social policy on the impressions of tourists, I should say. The figures show that Brits do not drink excessively compared to just about any other European country and certainly compared to Russia. It is a non-problem. But we did tell you that if you let them ban fags in pubs it would just encourage them, didn’t we?

“Everytime i see someone light up in the street i want one. Everytime i see a person on telly or in a film smoking, i want one. ”

Slow pete, that is because you like fags (understandably, they are very pleasant). Don’t let the therapy iindustry persuade you that you are ‘addicted’, though, it is an empty category. You just like something that you have decided not to have, that is all.

My opinion on booze is somewhat unorthadox. That is it seems to get the blame for social problems, but not enough credit for other things.

A lot of the drunken violence in my view is not related to alcohol, but related to the fact the people drinking it were tossers in the first place. Over the last 10 years the amount of weekends I have stayed in is probably an extremely small percentage. Like most people, I go out and drink on the weekend. Yet I have seen 2 fights in 10 years, and one was a domestic at a taxi rank. The other was started by somebody not from the particular subculture I am involved with. In other words, the subculture I am involved with does not seem to have an issue with violence. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure if I had gone drinking in other establishments, and associated with different people, I would equally have witnessed fights on a weekly basis.

The point is the negative effects of alcohol are not distributed equally, but are concentrated in a particular section. We all know which pubs and places in the areas we live have the repuation for violence. Yet we pay exactly the same tax on our pints as the people frequenting these other places (another flaw of using pigou taxes for externalities btw). I’d even wager the health effects are not equally distributed as well.

On the other hand the positives of alcohol are rarely mentioned. The contribution of Pubs – particualrly the small places associated with specific subcultures or communities – to social capital, social networks etc I think it far understimated. Furthermore the complimentry activities that accompany these places – live music, charity events etc, represent a massive cultural and economic contribution that we will be far poorer without.

Its an absolute scandal that pubs are closing at the rate they are. (and isn’t the chain pubs and chav meat markets that are the ones closing either)

The governments approach to pubs has been shocking. They are being undercut by supermarkets, who offer most of the negatives of alcohol but none of the positives. Problem drinkers now just drink at home, and take it out on their families. At least if they went out, their problems could be identified and dealt with by landlords and pub communities, and their children may get a break. So the logical thing to do would be to abolish tax on beers sold in pubs, and increase it if it is sold in the supermarket. And use the licensing system to discriminate against problem pubs.

‘Watch most British TV programmes, dramas or soaps and every other scene takes place to a background of one or more stressed out characters knocking back a shot of whisky, vodka or other.’

Yeah, what we should’t do is have stressed-out people on TV act like stressed out people in real life. No doubt the reason people who have been through a stressful event turn to alcohol is because hey, that’s what Phil Mitchel would do and it all works out for the best for him.

Yes, Shatterface, quite.

The whole thing is based on arbitrary number anyway. This alcohol thing seems like just another moral panic, to distract us from the fact that a) society seems to have lost its manners in the ways in which we deal with each other and b) we seem to have forgotten how to police public spaces properly with the explicit consent and help from the people.

Claude [14]

You said:
“I think it’s just staggering how anyone can deny that alcohol abuse is going up especially amongst young people in the UK. Never underestimate the power of denial. “Not my son”, right?”

Please read my posts more carefully, I said:
“Whilst generally in agreement with you…
…(DISCLAIMER: it may well be that England has higher drinking problems, but if so then give us the stats – not just “ask any foreigner”)”

You said:
“But something tells me I’m wasting my time. You’ve already made up your mind that alcohol in the UK is absolutely fine and all is under control”

Which is exaclty the kind of attutude I was objecting to – assumptions based on preconception rather than fact.

Thanks for posting the stats – that’s all I wanted from the original article. With all the “teenage pregnancy epidemic” and “immigration explosion” crap we get fed I am immediately suspicious of any article which presumes that everyone agrees that there is a problem without putting forward anything to back it up.

If I was pressed, I too would say there probably has been an increase in alcohol abuse (if we ignore the under-represented working classes of more than 70-80 years ago) but that is just my own opinion and I welcome any studies that either confirm or deny it.

So is this a matter for government?

Absolutely not. The quantity of alcohol I drink or what I smoke is a matter of free will. It is an issue for me and no one else. Government insistence on making manufacturers publish pornographic images on packaging is an insult to the intelligence of every citizen. If I want to know about the health risk related to my lifestyle, I’ll google it.

There is a public health issue but how great it is seems unclear.

There is no public health issue, only a number of individual health issues.

The argument that the NHS will be required to look after me and others will have to bear the cost is an argument for the reform of the NHS. There is also a logical argument that, if my lifespan is curtailed as a result of my poor lifestyle choices, I will cost the health sevice less money overall.

There is also an issue of crime and antisocial behaviour, especially with younger drinkers.

I hope so.

Planeshift is very right – it is the personalities of the people who drink in certain pubs/bars that are more inclined to fight. It was the main reason for me quitting my last job at a city centre ‘cheap’ Weatherspoon-eque bar was the fact that there was at least one fight every evening. You could tell an hour before it happened who was going to be involved, but the management never stopped serving them (I was reprimanded for doing so), and the police refused to arrest them after the fight was broken up. In the next pub I worked in (a traditional country/locals place) we never had a fight, despite prices being the same as the city centre bar, and being open later because the customers were only interested in having a pleasant evening playing darts and reading their newspapers.

As for smoking – the reason I quit tobacco and now use an Electrofag (except when I can get duty free) was to stop funding the bloated NHS.

Edit function back please.

Claude has fallen for the government line on smoking reduction.

From a medical point of view, the ideal is for every smoker who quits to stay quit. (I’ll be a year off the little beasties come April.)

From a political point of view, ministers want the maximum number of people to quit, so they have the largest possible number to brag about. No one cares tuppence if some, most or even all of them pick up again. And BTW, Slow Pete [6] – if this is your first time trying to quit, don’t feel ashamed when you pick up again. Nicotine is so addictive (more addictive than heroin) that almost no one quits and stays quit the first time. And if you’re still angered by others smoking, for example, I don’t give a prayer for your chances. If you really want to quit, you can keep your ashtrays for visitors – all the ex-smokers I know enjoy a little passive smoking from time to time.

It’s interesting that proportionately more smokers die of smoking-related diseases than did 20 or 40 years ago. This is of course because a death certificate is a political document. If a doctor expects me to die of, say heart failure, and my corpse doesn’t have a pickaxe in the skull, heart failure is what (s)he’ll write on the certificate.

#27 Unusual as it may sound, I actually agree with pagar on this one.

I posted this but for some strange reason it didn’t appear:

Call me bigoted and narrow-minded but I’m a great believer in evidence-based policy:

“Smoking in Japan is much less subject to bans than in many other nations, and Japan accounts for much of the tobacco consumption in Asia. Nearly 30 million people smoke in Japan, making the country one of the world’s largest tobacco markets. Japan is one of the last industrialized nations in the world where adult smoking is still widespread.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_in_Japan

The really strange thing is:

“Life expectancy in Japan, for both men and women, is the highest in the world.”
http://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia29/en/feature/index.html

OTOH I’ve found that having a heart attack is a hugely effective way of giving up smoking.

#24 Shatterface

“No doubt the reason people who have been through a stressful event turn to alcohol is because hey, that’s what Phil Mitchel would do and it all works out for the best for him.”

You are completely misreading what I meant.

We’re actually coming from the same perspective. I’m saying that it’s useless, hypocritical and patronising to have a hollow warning on a can of lager while the whole thing is present at each and every level in our society, including programmes like EastEnders.

@17 Shatterface

Very interesting article! So much for evidence-based policies. I can’t blame the original committee, but new, better data should be lead to newer, better policies / advice.

@23 Planeshift.

Spot on about pubs. If there are any problems about boozing then much of the booze in question must come from cheap offsales rather than proper pubs (not Yates etc, as you rightly point out). My community just lost one of its pubs. We’ve another two, less good ones. One is up for sale and may close, the other is crap. In a rural community like mine the loss of our pubs is the loss of an important social centre, unlikely to be replaced. These days its not just blokes who lose out: families eat out and groups meet in function rooms provided by the pub.

Pubcos have a lot to answer for. The inflated cost of beer in adition to the overheads and tax burdens gives the publican a very low margin. Government has steadfastly refused to recognise the importance of pubs to communities and the negative effects of government policy and dodgy pubcos on them.

@27 Pagar

I was hoping we could avoid dogma in this thread. Ho hum.

The kids that vandalise our community facilities only seem to do so where someone has left piles of empty booze containers. Funny coincidence.

“spiralling out of control”

Sorry, but no. Absolutely not. Lazy, lazy journalism.

Foreigners have considered the Brits to be a nation of pissheads since the Romans showed up. And have you read any of the hand-wringing over ‘Gin Alley’ and the horrors contained therein? What do you think inspired the temperance movement?

Think you need to loosen up a bit. Have a pint!

“Nicotine is so addictive (more addictive than heroin) ”

Perhaps a bit ot but neither of these are really addictive at all. The sooner we get a hang of this the easier it will be to deal with the problem. One of the surest way to get a heroin ‘addict’ to quit, for example, is to bribe him or her. So how are they ‘addicted’?

When someone says they are ‘addicted’ to nicotine, they are just translating into acceptable therapy-speak the much less aceptable sentiment ‘I really, really like smokin so I keep doing it even though I know it will probably make me sick’.

@35

Oh yeah?

If something changes the chemical makeup and wiring of the brain it’s safe to say that “addiction” exists, as it not merely therepy-speak.

“Someone said somewhere that a large sign on both fags or booze saying “Thank you for your contribution to the tax man” would probably make a stronger impact. The Government should definitely give that one a go.”

Well, I’d like to see that, as it would serve the useful function of reminding people how much of the money they spend goes to government (indirect taxation could be argued to be a form of lying about how much you are charging people), and it might even work…

Yurrzem @ 33

I was hoping we could avoid dogma in this thread.

And I was hoping we could avoid comment from those congenitally unable to differentiate between evidence and anecdote.

The sort of people who, when they find a knife alongside a dead body, want to charge the knife with the crime.

The sort of people who bemoan the loss of their local pub and their right to drink there but want to stop young people (who could not afford to pay the pub prices) from buying cheap booze and drinking it in the park.

You know the sort of people I mean. Social fascists.

Ho hum.

@38

Calm down. Deep breaths.

As a local councillor I’m directly involved with youth provision and policing. I’m not referring to anecdotes or apocryphal tales in my posting.

You, on the other hand, resorted to dogma without a thought to the postings of others. Simple minds like simple things, I suppose.

@39

Some things are simple.

Like the right of the individual to do with his body as he sees fit without interference from others. In particular, without the prospect of interference from a local politician with socially oppressive tendencies and a personal agenda to mend his bit of broken Britain.

‘In fairness, eradicating booze culture in Britain is no easy feat. If anything, the problem’s spiralling out of control.’

What, why, where?! This is the left wing equivalent of an immigration panic. This nation has always been at its best in a moderately pissed state (that was basically the whole of the 18th century). Sure it has its problems but people like it! We should try and take the edge off the violence associated with it by punishing the minority who won’t control themselves when they are plastered, and internalising the costs (charges if you turn up in A&E having been utterly stupid) and then we can just leave people alone.

@40

Its not the right of an individual to booze I’m interested in. One of my points was about the consequences of alcohol-related antisocial behaviour seen in my community, reported to me by our PCSOs and demonstrated by the littering I described and that you facetiously compared with blaming a knife for a stabbing.

I doubt my community is unique in its problems.

You might argue that alcohol is taxed so the vandals have paid upfront for the right to wreck our amenities. Funnily enough the public don’t see it that way when we set our repairs budget every year.

[40] “Some things are simple – Like the right of the individual to do with his body as he sees fit without interference from others”.

The effect of alcohol, in many cases, extends far beyond the individual, though.

Some children suffer terribly, as do the wives of some boozers, or those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a drunk gets behind the wheel of a car (etc, etc) – it will be of scant comfort in any of these cases to learn that the gin loving Victorians might have been even worse.

In short there are wider social costs associated with alcohol that some individuals are either unable or unwilling to address themselves – now, if shit happens frequently enough, or becomes predictable enough (as is the case with certain drinking patterns) then inevitably somebody else will want do something about it.

We can argue the toss about wether or not various social policies have made much difference but we can’t deny that alcohol is a social drug (and always has been) in more than one sense of the word?

‘You might argue that alcohol is taxed so the vandals have paid upfront for the right to wreck our amenities. Funnily enough the public don’t see it that way when we set our repairs budget every year.’

‘We can argue the toss about wether or not various social policies have made much difference but we can’t deny that alcohol is a social drug (and always has been) in more than one sense of the word?’

You guys are putting yourself against some fairly core liberal principles when you say these things. It is not even libertarian, J S Mill was against this sort of argumentation that collapsed personal choice by simply describing every act as potentially ‘socially harmful’. The solution is to punish those who actually commit the crimes, whether it is vandalism or violence, regardless of whether they are sloshed or not, not the vast majority who can drink plenty without effecting anyone else.

Bearing in mind the point of the OP is that no amount of “health warning” on bottles or cans is going to change anything, what baffles me (politely put) is still people denying/downplaying that the UK has a booze problem.

I maintain, in my view this is down to the “not my son” reflex. Some people don’t take criticism of their own very well and would clutch at the most unlikely straw to say that it’s not true.

Most Fridays Saturday nights with my friends in Brum we used to walk across from a certain pub in town towards a (now defunct) rock nightclub called XLs. It was a 15 min walk which had to inevitably involve Broad Street, which is the shitty trendy/townie main “entertainment” road in Birmingham.

I can honestly say there was hardly a single weekend without witnessing directly booze-related violence. The macho posturing along Broad Street was unbelievable. I remember my mates and myself remarking on the fact that each single time that’d be signs of people being glassed, ambulances, police, fights, etc.
I vividly remember the words of a WPC friend of mine when she told me that her and her colleagues all dread it when their shifts was Broad Street on a weekend night.

You can say that this is “tabloid crap”, no probs. Denial is a fantastic thing, that’s what I would answer.

And then I’d also add that it’s no coincidence that in 2003 Birmingham City Council set up a £1,790,000 five-year scheme called BID (Business Improvement District) that included 24-hour “Broad Street wardens”.

Just in case you think this is all an exaggeration and start arguing the toss with hollow talks of 18th century Britain..

And if it happened in Brum, my bet is that there are similar shitty roads in most cities where similar alcohol-fuelled incidents take place.

Now, when you travel to most other European countries this doesn’t happen. Definitely not even remotely at the same level. End of. And yes, it;s true. Mostly, overall, they don’t drink less than the Brits. Which is where the issue becomes particularly difficult to explain.

Is it to do with repression? Is there a particularly aggressive streak in this country? What is it? There is no obvious answer to the problem.

But denial is going to solve fuckall. Go out in Spain, France or Italy, not just a little weekend. Travel. Select where the so-called “entertainment” bits are. Go for a walk. Open your eyes. Observe. See if you spot the same degree of tension, fights and ridiculously heavy police presence down the main entertainment spots in each of those countries.

And then come back here and write, hand on heart, that “Sorry, but no. Absolutely not. Lazy, lazy journalism”.

Nick @44
“You guys are putting yourself against some fairly core liberal principles when you say these things.”
And?
I didn’t realise “Liberal Principles” were a religion?
What’s the penance for such awful sin?
Will a Hail JS Mill do?

Its not the right of an individual to booze I’m interested in.

Clearly. Unless it is your right to socialise in the pub of your choice.

One of my points was about the consequences of alcohol-related antisocial behaviour seen in my community, reported to me by our PCSOs and demonstrated by the littering I described

Linking the consumption of alcohol with anti social behaviour is your problem here because there is no logical link.

Both drunk and sober people commit crimes. It is the commission of the crime that is the issue and criminals need to be caught and punished no matter their state of sobriety.

As I understand it PCSOs have been particularly useless in detecting or preventing crime but as long as they are writing reports keeping you abreast of the litter situation I suppose they are fulfilling some purpose.

“denying/downplaying that the UK has a booze problem.”

Actually your annecdotal evidence would suggest that the UK has a violence problem, not a booze problem

And you should have just stayed in scruffy murphys…..

Way to miss Nick’s point, Claude.

#49
You got the map wrong.
Scruffy Murphys is at the other end of town.

@48

From a quick search: “The 2000 BCS estimated there were around 1.2 million incidents of alcohol related violence in 1999″ (http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/violence/violence08.htm) (Ten years ago, I know).

Plenty of people drink away happily without causing trouble, I think we can agree on that. However that does not mean that alcohol is not a factor in crime and antisocial behaviour.

I thought Planeshift made an interesting point (@23) when he suggests that some people are more likely to behave antisocially under the influence of alcohol than others.

There’s also some interesting reading here : http://www.sirc.org/publik/alcohol_related_violence4.shtml

And calm down about pubs. All I said is that I want to stop pub closures.

‘I didn’t realise “Liberal Principles” were a religion?
What’s the penance for such awful sin?’

There is no punishment, I argue with conservatives all the time who don’t hold onto liberal principles too. I just find it kinda funny that I end up having basically the same arguments with conservatives as with socialists, and sometimes even about the same issue, whether its drugs, prostitution or drink.

But look at it this way. I am against collective punishment. Individuals are responsible for glassing people, just as many individuals do no such thing. I think it is almost a core liberal idea to respect that difference rather than treat everyone in a group as a problem.

Agree with Planeshift (49), what you’re talking about isn’t a booze problem, it’s a social order/violence problem.

You are right on one thing, from West Street in Brighton, to Matthew Street in Liverpool and Leicester Square in London, most cities seem to have a concentrated area of horrible pubs full of barely-concealed violence.

But what you seem to have missed is that most councils/police have followed policies which actively concentrate the ‘drinking barns’ in one area of town because – if you believe them, and I do – it makes their job EASIER as all the reprobates are concentrated in one small area and the right-thinking, decent CAMRA members know which places to avoid.

Tarring all drinkers, as you have repeatedly, with this ‘if only the horrible Brits knew how to drink like those lovely Continentals’ is silly and irresponsible. I would argue that the vast majority of drinkers in the UK know how much is too much, make sure they can get home safely and would no more chuck a glass at anyone than they would voluntarily order a WKD.

Incidentally, and from the point of view of a non-smoker who is appreciating the ban, I presume that cigarettes would be preferable to alchohol for many of the commentators, as their users do not become rowdy and cause violence?

How I love moral panics…

“Now, when you travel to most other European countries this doesn’t happen. Definitely not even remotely at the same level. End of. And yes, it;s true. Mostly, overall, they don’t drink less than the Brits. Which is where the issue becomes particularly difficult to explain.”

well then maybe it’s not the drink that’s the problem… but the people – as many have suggested.

I was once so drunk that I couldn’t write my name on the entry form to a club (a misspent youth) but i’ve never hit anyone or vandalised property, pretty much all my friends could say the same.

It would be interesting to see how many people who fight when drunk have also been in a fight sober.

Of course, drinking amplifies it – maybe makes it more likely for violence to occur – but so does football, and drinking is more fun than football.

“Go out in Spain, France or Italy, not just a little weekend. Travel. Select where the so-called “entertainment” bits are. Go for a walk. Open your eyes. Observe. See if you spot the same degree of tension, fights and ridiculously heavy police presence down the main entertainment spots in each of those countries.”

People drink stupid amounts in Japan – and are often less resiliant to alcohol – as a result it’s very normal to see suited business men asleep in gutters (http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=25380231345&ref=ts), but in 3 years there the only fight I saw was between an Englishman and an American.

Doesn’t this kind of disprove the “blame the booze” argument?

“If something changes the chemical makeup and wiring of the brain it’s safe to say that “addiction” exists, as it not merely therepy-speak.”

I don’t agree. Learning to read Chinese will alter the wiring of your brain, but is hardly ‘aaddictive;’. Eating cucumber alters the chemical make up of the brain briefly, but who is ‘addicted’ to cucumber? Of course nicotine has effects and they are pleasurable, that is why we love nicotine and smoking, but that is not the same thing as being ‘addicted’. I gave up cigarettes when the incentives to do so were stronger than my desire to smoke and it was straightforward if a bit sad sometimes. Smoking, aafter aall, requires much more effort than not smoking. People who keep smoking are making a choice. There is nobody on the planet, I would guess, who would not stop smoking immediately if they were offered a large enough cash incentive, and the research supports this view. ‘Addiction’ is a near-empty category. If you want to smoke, drink, gamble or take herione, go ahead, but don’t whinge about ‘addiction’ if it f**ks you up.

“Now, when you travel to most other European countries this doesn’t happen. ”

But other things happen. In Italy, for example, no young man would ever admit to being ‘drunk’ it is horribly infra dig, so no swaying and vomiting (on the whole). Te Italians believe in holding their drink and the English are notorious for not even being able to hold our weak beer (really, English people get drunk on beer! this strikes Italians as very amusing). But Italians will drink a bottle of scotch and see how fast they can drive to Rimini without a second thought. That is why there is carnage on the roads every Saturday, much worse than anything you will see in the UK. Don’t trust the perceptions of the tourist, especially when it is you.

Addiction and substance abuse are complex, multifactoral behaviours. You are grossly oversimplifying them and by doing so denigrate a great deal of suffering. This glibness does you no credit and weakens any case you may be trying to make.

[57][58] John, I want you to make me a couple of promises.

First, can you assure us all that everyone who goes to AA, NA and other such meetings are actually weak & useless moral cripples society would be better off without?

Second, will you promise me that you will campaign to get your local social services authority to stop spending money on “treatment” programmes for addicts, alcoholics etc as “addiction” does not exist?

Clearly, anyone who doesn’t understand that you are right and the World Health Organisation (among others) is wrong is someone the world would be better off without, right?

None of us are fit to lick your boots.

@45 Nick,

Identifying a problem is different from advocating punishment for those involved. I wasn’t suggesting punishing kids who booze. There may be issues there, getting pissed all the time is hardly a positive life choice (and I’ve got a shocking few units under my lifetime belt, so I have no wish to be hypocritical). Lets hope they grow out of it like most of us.

@54 Julia Smith
“Tarring all drinkers, as you have repeatedly, with this ‘if only the horrible Brits knew how to drink like those lovely Continentals’ is silly and irresponsible.”
Straw man central.

a) I never said every single Brit is an alcoholic. I mean, seriously, do I have to specify this? You are “silly and irresponsible” for implying that I did.

b) Obviously most people in Britain -including myself, I like to think- can handle a drink, or two or three or even getting rat-arsed. Like you said: “I would argue that the vast majority of drinkers in the UK know how much is too much, make sure they can get home safely and would no more chuck a glass at anyone than they would voluntarily order a WKD”.

But the above mentioned people are not what we’re talking about.

c) The point being that the minority who seem unable to handle their drinks is a bigger minority and more anti social than in most other countries. It really is that simple.

@58 John Meriedih

“But other things happen.”
Yeah but we’re not talking about other things at the moment.

As for “perceptions of tourists”, yawn, I already said I lived and worked in Ita, Fra and Esp. and that I’m not basing my opinion on tourist experience.

Both the Italians and the French do not drink that much. They tend drink with their meals, sure, but socially I remember how both myself and my colleagues (all from Britain and Ireland) where blown away by the sight of most tables in cafes where people of all ages sit and chat while drinking mineral water, coffee or pop. Yes, even a lot of young people, and even on a Friday and Saturday night.

Again (for the benefit of people like Julia Smith) this isn’t to say that Italy or France don’t have their fair share of pissheads each. We are talking about general trends here.

I would argue that the Spaniards drink a lot more than the Italians but they are much more patient than the Brits. They don’t binge (again, that isn’t to say that no Spaniard is a binge drinker). And again, they nibble (i.e. this is why the whole concept of ‘tapas’ was invented). Also IMHO, the Spaniards may have a lot of nagging features but (on the whole, of course) they are the least aggressive peoples I’ve actually met in my life.

Hey claude, I like you man, you’re feisty. We should meet up and drink Laphroaig until our teeth melt, disagree and yet in no way hit each other. Good times!

I do have to point out though, that you are confusing anecdote with stats: you walk through what sounds like a grim part of Brum, you sit in a lovely part of Italy. Then you join the dots and ask why a “minority of people who can’t handle their drinks” can cause such trouble.

This is what people who should know better do when they wander through Hackney or Bradford and then go and write articles for the Daily Mail about how we’re being ‘overwhelmed by immigrants’. It’s lazy journalism when they do it, so I’m afraid you have to be called on it when you do it.

P.S.

re: ‘I never said every single Brit is an alcoholic’ but you did say foreigners think ‘Britain’s a country of pissheads’.

I must have missed the bit where you replied to them ‘oh no, there’s a minority of twits that like to cause trouble, but most of us are sound’, so apologies!

Claude’s OP: “Watch most British TV programmes, dramas or soaps and every other scene takes place to a background of one or more stressed out characters knocking back a shot of whisky, vodka or other.”

Or watch any film noir where the troubled male principal indulges in a bottle of scotch, looks weary the next morning but still gets the job done. Or more recently, watch The Sweeney. TV and movie programmes misrepresent the effects of alcohol, but most of us learn from experience that real life is different. Misrepresentation is nothing new.

A different portrayal of alcohol is delivered in the works of pulp writers such as David Goodis or Jim Thompson. Both wrote novels about alcoholism from an alcoholics perspective.

I tend to agree that south Europeans handle booze differently. However, I would point to the youth/student/rock club areas in, say, Valencia or Lisbon. You’ll see vomit and piss in the streets, broken glass and banners requesting the fools to show respect to residents. And don’t the northern Spaniards suffer from post-exam mass youth binges?

As for “perceptions of tourists”, yawn, I already said I lived and worked in Ita, Fra and Esp. and that I’m not basing my opinion on tourist experience.

Both the Italians and the French do not drink that much. They tend drink with their meals, sure, but socially I remember how both myself and my colleagues (all from Britain and Ireland) where blown away by the sight of most tables in cafes where people of all ages sit and chat while drinking mineral water, coffee or pop. Yes, even a lot of young people, and even on a Friday and Saturday night.

Again (for the benefit of people like Julia Smith) this isn’t to say that Italy or France don’t have their fair share of pissheads each. We are talking about general trends here.

You anecdotal experience does not equal evidence for general trends.

As for “Liberal Principles”, I would’ve thought it fairly obvious that a site that calls itself “LIBERAL Conspiracy” should go along with them.

Warnings on things (whether they are cigarettes or aspirin) are there to provide information to the consumer. Who should be free to ingest whatever they damn well please without anyone nannying them.

Julia Smith, you asmart alec,

“you are confusing anecdote with stats”

Keep up will you? Look at #14.

The world according to Julia Smith:
When lawmakers discuss passing laws to regulate murder sentencing they go – every 2 minutes – “oh but the majority of us are not murderers”.

@64″you walk through what sounds like a grim part of Brum”
Wrong. I didnt walk through it. I lived in that part of Brum all my life.
And don’t you call it “grim”. Where’s your evidence. How dare you.

“I don’t know about you but I’ve never met anyone -not a single person – who’s ever drunk cola because of Coke and Pepsi ads. Like, NOT ONE.”

“I don’t know about you but I’ve never met anyone -not a single person – who’s ever changed their views about on an issue due to something they read on a blo. Like, NOT ONE.”

And again, they nibble (i.e. this is why the whole concept of ‘tapas’ was invented

No, the ‘lid’ was to stop flies from drinking the booze.

@57

Maybe people are more addicted to cash then than anything else? I’ll be honest, I’m no medic/biologist so all I know is what I’ve been told. If I see evidence proving the non-existence of physical addiction I’ll hold my hands up and change my view.

claude, I once worked on a case where a woman lost an eye after a glassing in the Walkabout in Brum. Maybe what someone needs to do is ban all alcohol sales within a 100-mile radius of the Bullring?

[73] Using drugs can induce a vast array of physical symptoms, but then again, so does crashing a car into a wall.

Critics of the ‘disease’ model of addiction question whether or not behaviours, such as injecting heroin, say, arise from existential choice or from underlying pathophysiology – some claim that until this central question is settled then any subsequent model for ‘treatment’ or ‘intervention’ is likely to be based on a flawed prospectus?

Books like ‘Junk Medicine’ express alarm at mushrooming ‘treatment bureaucracies’ not only because they have patently failed to reduce the number of addicts but because they may also be playing a part in fueling certain self defeating choices?

Here’s a review of Junk Medicine, snappily entitled “addicted to getting it wrong about heroin”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3670042/Addicted-to-getting-it-wrong-about-heroin.html

More here;
http://www.skepticaldoctor.com/Romancing_Opiates.html

The only certain way to eliminate drug abuse (including alcohol and nicotine abuse) is of course to exterminate all the abusers.

The problem with Dalrymple’s position is that he supposes that an observer – even a medically qualified one – can diagnose addiction (a different concept to abuse). Addiction theory says they can’t – the only diagnosis is self-diagnosis.

Of course there will be people who will make such a self-diagnosis dishonestly, and if I wanted to get a doctor to believe that addiction theory is all my eye and Betty Martin I could think of no better position for him than as a prison doctor.

Why does the fact that some people who have been heavy heroin users in one situation (Vietnam) then stop using it in another (return to USA) mean that other people aren’t addicted to the stuff?

Dalrymple’s arguments could probably be adapted to deny the existence of any form of mental illness – and I daresay not a few of his fans would want to do precisely that.

Maybe what someone needs to do is ban all alcohol sales within a 100-mile radius of the Bullring?

Julia

You may think that comment is pithy and amusing.

I, on the other hand, am concerned your idea will have been discussed in the boardroom of some fake charity by now………..

“Measures like health warnings on cigarettes and alcohol help to create a climate of de-normalisation in which it is easier for people to give up or reduce their intake”

Yep – straight from page 1 of “An idiots guide to psychology” unfortunately it’s bullshit. I started smoking in the late 1970s, There were health warnings on packets even then. There isn’t a shred of evidence that they work. Even the current “ban” hasn’t significantly reduced smoking rates, or the amount of tobacco products sold in the country. What we have now is the bizzare situation where people who use a product which is taxed at almost 50% and generates some £9B a year in tax revenue are subject to what amounts to government sponsored public harrasement and social exclusion. The ban has not worked, it has just pissed a lot of people off by denying them the small pleasue of a pint and a cigarette, or more often just forced their local pub to close.

The bigger point is; if I or anyone else chooses to smoke, why is it any of the governments business, and why do so many “liberals” feel compelled to make me stop ?

[78] At least some of those who I suppose we would describe as “anti-smokers” would be in favour of a poll tax on ex-smokers equivalent to the excise duty they paid when they smoked. I know because I’ve met them. They wouldn’t necessarily regard “liberal” as a cheer-word, however…

[76] on the one hand there is (so called) scientific truth, on the other there is political manipulation of what science may or may not be saying. I certainly agree with you that this is problematic interface.

The main point I was raising, and I think it has already been touched on by other posters, is the tendency to medicalise problems in living in the absence of any PROVEN pathophysiology – this is a very important principle in my mind.

For example – it seems that the emergence of new psychiatric conditions is almost tantamount to a growth industry (especially some of the labels attributed to children)?
http://allpsych.com/disorders/disorders_alpha.html

But I’m glad to say that even China has finally accepted that homosexuality should no longer be classified as a ‘mental illness’ even though it took until the new millennium before they decreed it so;
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55/325.html

Must be some sort of a prat who smokes then critices haven/t seen yor for a while brummy