Crack down harder on drink abuse

Drink is one of the pleasures of life. It is also one of the greatest curses in Britain today.

While most people are able to enjoy a beer or glass of wine as part of everyday living, a minority booze to wild excess with catastrophic results. Alcohol is responsible for most violent crime and a huge proportion of anti-social behaviour. Police waste countless hours dealing with the consequences of booze while hospital emergency units are pushed to the limit by drunks, many of whom attack nurses and doctors in their booze-fuelled mania. The cost to the nation runs into billions.

The Government clearly needs to take a tougher line and has patently failed to do so.

While it wages a war on drugs, it allows the misuse of alcohol to continue with little more than the occasional tut-tut of concern. Now the Sunday Mirror has learnt it is thinking of ordering drinks firms to put warning notices on cans and bottles.
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Considering the scale of the problem, that is a mild measure but at least it shows the Government is beginning to take the alcohol crisis seriously. The real villains are the drinks firms and supermarkets who peddle super-strength alcohol to young people.

Today we reveal how one firm has created a beer which is so strong that a single half-litre can contains five units of alcohol.

Although it is now withdrawing it from sale in this country, other high-strength lagers continue to be available in every supermarket and off-licence, while special offers, making drink available for ever-lower prices, carry on flourishing.

If the drinks industry and supermarkets continue to flout their responsibilities, particularly to youngsters, the Government must crack down on them hard.

Sunday Mirror