Do you think the UK's alcohol laws sho... - British Liver Trust
Do you think the UK's alcohol laws should change?
I am not sure with the lower price option.The price level should rise up so teen agers cannot buy Alcohol with their pocket money secretly.
Im not sure that raising the price will stop people drinking, they will moan about it yes, but if they want to drink they pay the price, and if they cant afford it some people will steal for it, after all people with drinking problems are ultimatly addicts x
Also raising the drinking age to 21 would be a better idea. And i think things have got much worse since pub opening times were extended.
All these comments are true, but I feel not until not drinking becomes more the norm and the advertising of alcohol is banned will a general acceptance of its OK not to drink and people look elsewhere for things to do to relax.
You only see adverts specifically for alcoholic drinks at Christmas now; that hasn't changed anything - in fact cirrhosis patients are getting younger (the youngest to die recently was 23).
Part of the problem is the way in which alcohol is depicted in popular culture. If you watch an episode of, say, Coronation Street, it soon become obvious that "normal" life revolves around alcohol: to celebrate, commiserate, appease, reward. In the mind of the uncritical viewer, alcohol is a norm but nobody is ever drunk or ill as a consequence (apart from the occasional joke hangover).
I am 60 but when I was 14 most young people left school to do manual work and of course they lived at home. The modern generation acted out as Teddy boys and bikers!
In my town they congregated at the cinema which was full when Elvis was on. When the cinema finished there would be a giant parade of big noisy bikers racing through the high street, disturbing old ladies, and assembling at the local cafe! Coffee at the cafe was the social drink amoungst the youth. That was it. Pubs were everywhere but were for the old folk that sat in old suit-like jackets with a cloth cap. It has been generations of advertizing that has done this and now there is the associated advertizing of consuming high alcoholic drinks and you are strong, fashionable and highly socially included and desired by the opposite sex. Our Anglo-Saxon trait of bingeing does not help either.
With Liver disease rates on the increase, future -more enlightened- generations will look back on this era much in the way we now look at past decades when smoking was far more popular, glamourous & not marginalised. The penny has dropped & the message has largely got through with smoking. The same will eventually happen with drinking when death rates go on rising. It is beginning to happen already, albeit too slowly.
As stated already, it needs a culture change on a big scale. Or, for it to get to the stage where everybody personally knows a heavy drinker who died because of their indulgence. Birthday cards basically saying "Get trollied" & alluding to a heroic & amusing hangover are but one example of current wrong thinking.
I'm one if the many to fall for it hook, line & sinker. You aren't exactly discouraged much currently, let's face it.
A good start would be getting ex alcoholics preferably with visible symptoms touring high schools warning of the ramifications. Maybe make it a condition of receiving a transplant? I'd sign up in a heartbeat.
I believe that giving up drinking is already the only way to find yourself entitled to a transplant if it's alcohol that has caused your liver condition (and let's face it, even the lightest drinker will show signs of alcoholic liver damage if that's the way your liver is, or so my specialists have told me). As to ex-alcoholics, that's a great idea - but I'd like to point out that there is no such thing as an "ex-alcoholic". Alcoholics who no longer drink are out there, true enough - I know a few - but they will tell you that they will never be ex-alcoholics; they are alcoholics who choose not to drink.
We could increase the legal age and we could have shops only selling at certain times. However, you're still going to get kids who look older than they are/borrow an older person's birth certificate (can you still use those to prove your age?)/get older friends to buy for them, and people are always going to buy in bulk to get around laws concerning times for sale. How do you stop someone with a full home bar or wine cellar from drinking if they want to? Or people who perfectly legally brew their own?
increase the age to 21,, then per unit,, 21 year olds have more money than the 18s and the student population should be studying.. then city centers might be safer at night
