Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Binge Drinking: Where's the Social responsibility?

In Finland it seems they start drinking beer at 6am. Finns know the fine art of drinking. Finns binge drink. They don't drink during the week but come Friday night, they start drinking. They drink in the parks , on the streets and they drink before they go out to parties.

Binge drinking is harmful to health and contributes to increases in health and social cost due to alcohol misuse. Bingeing and under-aged drinking is becoming a problem in some of the European Countries. Drinking to get drunk is a dangerous trend seen among the youth in many Western Countries. Violent crimes and road accident deaths are common stories attributed to drunken behaviour.

In order to combat this problem, the UK governement is considering a ban on passengers drinking alcohol on public transport including trains and buses. Critics of this arguement say that alcohol related problems and violence come from persons who are drunk and on their way home from pubs and clubs.

Clearly there is a social responsibilty to manage this problem. Nobody denies about the impact alcohol has on young people leading to to a culture of crimes, violent behaviour and disruption in family lives. The dependency of alcohol to some people and its effect and cost on society is a harrowing nightmare.

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