Mouthpiece: Society must act as one to end booze culture

Published on Friday 12 June 2009 10:10

MILLIONS of pounds are spent in Scotland each year dealing with the consequences of excessive alcohol consumption. Hospital admissions due to alcohol have increased year-on-year, and our death rate from alcoholic liver cirrhosis is now one of the highest in the world.

Although many acknowledge that Scotland has a problem with alcohol, most of us seem to think it has nothing to do with us personally – even though many of us are drinking more than we'd like to admit. All too often, the finger of blame is pointed at young binge drinkers or the desperate figure of the alcoholic on the park bench.

Whatever our personal drinking habit, alcohol concerns us all either in terms of our active engagement or passive acceptance of a drinking culture that promotes heavy drinking and drunkenness. From the hospital staff who see their workloads increase every weekend, to the communities for whom parks have become no-go areas, the families who mourn the six people killed by alcohol each day and the children who live in dread of parental drunkenness, there can't be many in Scotland who have not felt the negative impact of alcohol. Unless we start to "own" our problem with alcohol, and act together to address it, we will fail to get to grips with it.

We would urge our politicians to show leadership at the forthcoming alcohol summit, to set party political differences aside, and act together in the interests of the health of the people of Scotland. We know that increased harm is linked to our increased alcohol consumption and that the main solution lies in cutting the amount of alcohol consumed. The evidence is also very clear that the most effective way of doing this is by increasing its price and limiting its availability.

Scotland's drinking culture has become an embarrassment and attempts to reduce alcohol-related harm have not worked. We can turn our current situation around, if we have politicians with the courage to back policies that work and a society willing to support them.

• Dr Bruce Ritson is chairman of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems