44 / Call to lift minimum drinking age
To lift minimum drinking age is probably a good idea (SMH today), as may be increasing the cost of alcohol with additional taxes and limiting hotel opening hours. But here's a reality to ponder: My boys used to have a party at home with cheap bottle-shop booze before they went to the pub/disco - so they didn't have to spend big on their drink.
There is only one way to kerb alcohol related violence: Drunkenness in public must be illegal. Just as it is illegal to drive a car when intoxicated, there has to be a legal limit for intoxication in public places. Furthermore, breathalysers should be mandatory in places where alcohol is served.
Update (read also my essay IRRATIONALITY from my upcoming book.)
I wrote before about the cost of illegal drugs - 2009 October 16, How much does the war on drugs cost? - well, it's $4.7 billion.
Compare that to the cost to the community of alcohol use: $15 billion; read on …
Drinking their way to early death, by Rachel Browne, 2009 October 25, the Sun-Herald
ALCOHOL is a factor in the deaths of one in seven young people, kills 3430 people a year and causes accidents and injury that put 80,000 Australians into hospital annually.
A report released by the National Drug Research Institute last month showed that, while alcohol-related deaths were decreasing, hospital admissions had risen by a third over the past decade.
"Every week, on average, risky or high-risk drinking is killing more than 60 Australians and putting another 1500 people - the equivalent of a small town - in hospital, owing to injury or disease that is entirely preventable," the National Drug Research Institute associate professor Tanya Chikritzhs said.
According to the National Preventative Health Taskforce Report, released this month, alcohol abuse costs the Australian economy $15 billion a year.
The highest cost factors were loss of life ($4.135 billion), workforce reduction and absenteeism ($3.579 billion) and road accidents ($2.202 billion).
Australians are among the highest consumers of pure alcohol in the world, drinking about 9.88 litres a year. Eighty-three per cent of the population are drinkers and about one in five drink at high-risk levels at least once a month.
Alcohol-related violence, crime and illness increase in November, peaking in December, according to the Australian Drug Foundation's national policy manager Geoff Munro. ''It's supposed to be a time when families come together to celebrate the end of the year but it is often marred by excessive drinking. That leads to greater conflict and aggression and assaults.''
St George Hospital's emergency department director Adam Chan said: ''Alcohol-related hospitalisation is seasonal in the same way as the flu. From November through to the end of December is the busiest time for alcohol-related presentations at hospitals right across the state.''
Patients fall into two categories: those with alcohol poisoning and those who have injured themselves while intoxicated.