Revealed: true scale of nation over the limit

Published on Saturday 14 February 2009 18:43

EVERY man and woman over 16 in Scotland is downing an average of 23 units of alcohol a week, shocking new government figures have revealed.

Despite maximum safe limits of just 14 units for women and 21 for men, previously secret drinks industry statistics have proved the entire nation is effectively over the limit.

The information has been collected by the Nielsen Company, a respected international firm of market analysts, and obtained by the Scottish Government.

The figures show Scots bought 640 million litres of drink in 2007, including 39 million litres of spirits, nearly 100 million of wine and 427 million litres of beer.

That amounted to nearly 50 million litres of pure alcohol a year, 11.8 litres or 23 units a week for every man and woman in the country aged 16 and over.

Twenty-three units is the equivalent of around seven and a half pints of 5% lager or six and a half large glasses of typical red wine, although exact figures will vary from brand to brand.

Bruce Ritson, the chairman of the medical pressure group Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, or Shaap, said the sheer scale of consumption meant Scots had to realise excessive drinking was no longer a minority issue.

He said: "We can no longer kid ourselves that alcohol misuse is somebody else's problem. These figures show that as a nation, we are drinking well over the limit and we're paying the price with more people admitted to hospital every day as a result of alcohol and the fastest growing liver cirrhosis rate in the world. Overall alcohol consumption must come down."

Ritson and others have been lobbying for the Scottish Government to take what it calls a "whole population" stance on alcohol, essentially making drink just a little harder to buy and just a little more expensive.

The Government will shortly reveal if it is to go ahead with what one senior doctor last night admitted was a "brave" policy of imposing minimum price restrictions on drinks.

The SNP administration also said it wanted to raise the minimum age for buying alcohol in an off-licence from 18 to 21 but it is now thought unlikely they will try to put this into law.

Doctors such as Ritson, however, believe stern measures will have to be taken to bring overall per-capita consumption down. That could come as a huge blow to the drinks industry.

Retail sales of alcohol were worth 3.6bn in 2007, including more than 900m each on spirits and wine and 1.4bn on beer, according to the Nielsen figures. Scotland would have to cut overall consumption by around 12 million litres of pure alcohol a year to get down to maximum recommended limits.

That could represent a quarter of total sales, potentially nearly 900m worth of business for the alcohol industry.

Peter Rice, a consultant psychiatrist with NHS Tayside, said he wanted to see the industry switch from high-volume, low-value to high-value, low-volume sales, stressing the sheer damage cheap alcohol is doing to Scotland's mental and physical health.

Rice said: "We talk a lot about the growth in drinking in women or in the young. But the rise in consumption is across the board, across the whole population, across every age and social group.

"A lot of our real concerns, for example, are with the over-45s and the over-65s."

Jack Cummins, a lawyer specialising in licensing, said: "What we are talking about here is unseen and heavy middle-class drinking."

The toll of over-drinking on Scotland's public health was underlined last week when it emerged that alcohol-related illnesses now account for more admissions to hospitals in Scotland than heart disease. The Scottish Government has estimated the financial cost of over-drinking – including the expense to the NHS and criminal justice system for alcohol-related disease and offending – at 2.25bn a year.

Public Health Minister Shona Robison yesterday said: "It's clear that alcohol intake has risen dramatically across society in recent decades as its relative price has plummeted.

"The Scottish Government wants to defuse this health time-bomb and that's why we have consulted on radical proposals to tackle it. We will outline the way forward shortly."

Sobering facts

Why does alcohol cause so much damage?

Alcohol is quickly soaked up through the stomach lining and carried to the liver and other organs. The liver processes alcohol but cannot store it. When the amount is more than the liver can deal with, the excess is transported to the rest of the organs.

When the liver is processing alcohol it produces a substance called acetaldehyde. This has a toxic effect on the liver itself, as well as the brain and stomach lining. Acetaldehyde is subsequently broken down into a chemical called acetate, which is broken down further into carbon dioxide and water outside the liver.

Regular and heavy drinking over time can strain or disrupt this process, leading to alcoholic liver disease.