Booze

Zoob · August 15, 2007

Senior policeman wants legal drinking age increased to combat booze inspired anti social behaviour.

I don't think raising the legal drinking age would actually help much, but I would absolutely support increasing tax on booze by a good 10%.

Piss-heads cost the taxpayer about 20 billion pounds a year in criminal damage and health issues alone. Given that these days it's even cooler to binge drink than it used to be / people turn to booze to numb their terrible lives, the NHS is likely to end up spending more and more on alcohol related disease and illnesses. around 4 in ten brits admit to exceeding recommended daily alcohol limits, and about 20% say they consume double the recommended limit in an average week. These figures are believed to be conservative estimates, given that most people tend to delude themselves about how much they actually drink.

We pay high tax on cigs, partly to discourage people, and partly to cover the medical costs of smoking. I don't know if anyone has any definite figures, but I'd be surprised if smoking now places more of a strain on the NHS than drinking does. And obviously people don't commit stupid / violent crimes after smoking cigs (unless laced with crack) whereas the financial damage done by piss heads is just astounding.

The government spends 6 times more on drug addiction and rehab programmes than it does on Alcoholism related programmes, and yet there are 6 times more alcohol addicts than there are drug addicts.

I'm sure no government has the balls to increase tax, indeed most Brits don't like admiting that the country has a collective drinking problem.

Right, I'm off to the pub...

Cobs · August 15, 2007

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