Heavy drinking will kill 63,000 people over next five years, doctors warn

[Northerner]

Almost 63,000 people in England will die over the next five years from liver problems linked to heavy drinking unless ministers tackle the scourge of cheap alcohol, doctors are warning.

Senior members of the medical profession and health charities are urging the government to bring in minimum unit pricing of alcohol and a crackdown on drink advertising to avert what they claim is the “public health crisis” of liver disease deaths.

Research from some of Britain’s leading academic experts on alcohol has found that alcohol misuse will lead to 62,905 deaths between 2017 and 2022 and cost the NHS £16.74bn to treat.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...3000-people-over-next-five-years-doctors-warn

 

[mikeyB]

Aye, Scotland is leading the way on this, and has run up against furious legal challenges from the drinks industry. The Supreme Court will give its judgement today. This is a flagship policy. The Supreme Courts decision will inform England and Wales efforts to do the same.

When British Columbia introduced this, alcohol related deaths reduced by 32%.

 

[Ditto]

If I ruled the world I'd go back to the old pub hours and I'd do away with offies altogether. I hate the BoozeBuster shops, proper nasty.

 

[mikeyB]

There's been offies for years - when I was a kid, and that's going back a bit. It's the cut price stuff nowadays that causes the problem - in Scotland it's the white cider for a quid a litre that kills.

 

[HOBIE]

Things where better when it was proper last order bell went. I know two people in my street who have had serious bother with drinking . Its a problem that families need to sort not politicians.

 

[Bill Stewardson]

I don't like the concept of punishing the innocent to get at the guilty.

The vast majority of people have no problem with cheap beer, it's the £4 pint I have problems with.

 

[mikeyB]

Of course the vast majority of people have no problem with cheap booze. But a significant minority do. Do you simply allow people to kill themselves with booze, or attempt to manipulate their behaviour? There was no outcry when cigarettes reached ridiculously high prices, and that has certainly helped reduce smoking.

 

[Bill Stewardson]

Of course the vast majority of people have no problem with cheap booze. But a significant minority do. Do you simply allow people to kill themselves with booze, or attempt to manipulate their behaviour? There was no outcry when cigarettes reached ridiculously high prices, and that has certainly helped reduce smoking.

I absolutely do not see why somebody else's inability to drink sensibly should have any impact whatsoever on me.
It's usually Scotland's drinking problems that are quoted, so, taking your point on board, make it £83 a pint in that country and leave us alone,

As for the long persecuted smokers, that's their call not mine, smoking has never bothered me one way or the other, making them huddle in the cold wind and rain was simply pub owners dodging the problem rather than spending a single penny to manage it.

Now that the "do good saints" have "done good" they will decide there's something else we all need to do without.

Contact sports, gambling, fried food, loud music, adult films, testing strips (sorry), pop, motor bikes, blue socks on Tuesdays- who knows ?

 

[mikeyB]

It's not Scotland doing this to England, Bill, your government thinks it's a good idea. Though it won't reduce problem drinking completely, because the statistics show it's the over forties in work who drink more than is good for them - wine with the meal every night, and a tot at bedtime.

 

[Bill Stewardson]

It's not Scotland doing this to England, Bill, your government thinks it's a good idea. Though it won't reduce problem drinking completely, because the statistics show it's the over forties in work who drink more than is good for them - wine with the meal every night, and a tot at bedtime.

Yes ,, I just don't like this growing trend of punishing the innocent to get at the guilty.

 

[mikeyB]

Never mind Bill, it's perfectly possible to be a normal happy human without any alcohol at all.

Mind, Shi'ites and Sunnis are giving abstinence a bit of a bad name at the moment in the Middle East.

 

[Lucy Honeychurch]

A few years ago I worked in a village pub and the majority of the regulars were retired men who would come in early evening and put away 4 or 5 pints every day, sometimes coming back later and having the same again. It's usually young binge drinkers in City bars that are under the spot light, older drinkers in local pubs are under the radar, but recent studies are now suggesting that younger people are drinking less and older people are drinking more, as Mike pointed out.