Police back booze ban for children

Parents could be banned from providing alcohol to their children's friends within 12 months as Victoria Police increases its support for tougher alcohol laws.

"It's up to individual parents to make decisions about whether their children are served, or are allowed to take alcohol, and it shouldn't be done for them by somebody else," Victoria Police deputy commissioner Kieran Walshe said. "And I think parents should have the right to know if their children are drinking alcohol."

Premier John Brumby recently released the State Government's Alcohol Action Plan, which confirmed it was considering new laws banning the residential supply of alcohol to children by people other than their parents. Similar laws are already in force in NSW.

Mr Walshe said the laws could be introduced within 12 months and would help police control unruly parties like one earlier this year in Narre Warren, in Melbourne's outer east, which spilled on to the streets.

"I think with some of the issues we have seen around parties and gatecrashing of parties and those sorts of issues that generate out of obviously young people drinking in residential premises, I think there is a need for it to be seriously looked at with a view to hopefully moving forward," he said.

Mr Walshe said the most likely punishment for people supplying alcohol would be fines.

"I would speculate that it would be some monetary penalty. I wouldn't think we would be jailing people for providing alcohol to minors," he said.

He said police would have no problems enforcing the proposed laws and many parents would self-regulate.

"I would expect that the majority of parents and adults would identify with their responsibilities under the law and they would comply," he said.

Mr Walshe said the laws would not mean parents could no longer allow their children to attend parties where alcohol was served.

"I don't think there would be any reason why it would prohibit them sort of notifying parents who are conducting the party that their child is permitted to drink in moderation," he said.

Parents would also still be permitted to serve alcohol to their children in their own home.

He said the laws were about combating serving alcohol to children without parents' knowledge.

Mr Walshe said the proposed laws could be used by police to disrupt unruly parties and also to punish offenders after the event.

"It may be some action that could be taken post-incident as a follow-up from a complaint lodged by parents of minors who have come home in an alcohol-affected way," he said.

The Victorian Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy will prepare advice on options to reduce binge drinking, including "reckless secondary supply of alcohol to minors".

The Age

The battle of the bottle

“If the chemical formula for alcohol had never been invented, and someone came up with the idea to put this stuff on the market today, believe me no government health authority would ever agree to manufacture any alcoholic drinks. The formula would immediately be recognised as a highly powerful chemical, dangerous for human consumption, causing blackouts, damage to the central nervous system and vital organs.”
Andreas (local pharmacist)

“An Englishman man, who must now be in his late fifties has for the past three years been one of my best customers. Three times a week he comes in, sits down and over a period of six hours usually orders 80 separate shots of alcohol. His highest bill one day was for 110 single drinks. He doesn’t seem worried about his drinking, but he also mixes his drinks with some tablets he got from the doctor for high blood pressure. God knows what state his liver is in, but he always looks okay, never any bother. He manages to keep walking and talking and then he gets a taxi home to sleep it off, until the next time.
“The biggest worry I’ve got in my job, is when under age drinkers, English kids of 13 or 14, come to the bar and ask for a beer. We refuse to serve them alcohol, but their grandparents will come up, and order beers for them. I can’t do much about it really, but it’s common here for older people to just sit and drink all day. Maybe they haven’t anything else to do with their days, and just need the company of a drink and people around them .”
Christos. (Bar Owner)

“I’d say almost one quarter of my foreign patients in the 50-70 age bracket show clear signs of heavy drinking. This manifests itself either as severe indigestion, chronic diarrhea, uncontrollable diabetes, and uncontrollable blood pressure and those are just a few of the complaints presented by patients. The damage to organs and related problems is a very long list. Many deny they drink to excess, and say they only do it to be sociable.”
Cypriot doctor (based at private clinic in Paphos)

You see them hunched at a bar at 11am, desperately trying to convince themselves they are not alcoholics, that Andreas the barman really is their friend, and that it’s only 11 hours till bedtime.
Welcome to the twisted love affair the British have with drinking. In Cyprus, holiday binge-drinking among teenagers looks like the glorious affirmation of youth, when compared to the constant daily deadening effects sought by some resident ex-pats who cling constantly to the wine box.
Visit any bar in Paphos and you will find residents consuming a steady level of mixed beverages. Peak into the supermarket trolley, and one wonders if every one is set upon hosting a booze-filled party come sun up.
Lager louts still throw up in the town centre on Saturday nights, but we also have clutches of ‘Saga louts’, who either quietly drink to excess in the privacy of their own home, or hit the town’s ever-welcoming bars and pubs where they get swiftly plastered on a regular basis. Even more frightening they will get behind the wheel of their car and drive home to sleep it off.
Some men and women talked to blamed their drinking habit on growing up in the swinging sixties. It was a time when growing up the pub culture was the only social life one had, other than dance halls or coffee bars. These baby boomers are now in their late sixties and seventies and seem determined to now keep swinging but only with a full glass to hand.

Jane, 49, is concerned about those who abstain from imbibing the Devil’s milk. She knows from experience. As a non drinker she is akin to “someone eating pigs’ trotters at a kosher feast. I am not joking, you cannot live here and have a good social life if you don’t drink. Alcohol is the key surrounding most activities, and admitting you don’t like alcohol is a quick form of social suicide. They don’t trust you, and there’s an immediate stigma attached to you. I’ve heard them. They say: ‘Oh! Here’s Jane and by the way she doesn’t drink’.
“It’s really sad, I am now defined by something I don’t like doing as it makes me sick. I admit I do sometimes lie and say I am on antibiotics or something, so I don’t have to deal with the pressure. God knows what a recovering alcoholic is doing living here in Cyprus they haven’t got a chance in hell of going cold turkey.”

Ronald, 57, usually greets the day with a drink at around 10.30am.
After three or four pints of beer he moves on to wine with lunch, drinking throughout the afternoon until he has a nap at 5pm. Then, he starts on local brandy until about midnight when he goes to bed.
His wife June also drinks heavily. Meeting them at 11am at a bar in the old market, June was already well into her third vodka and orange. When asked if this was a normal Saturday morning spent drinking, neither thought they had a problem with alcohol. “We don’t drink any more than other expats. It’s now a way of life for us, drinking and socialising with friends. There isn’t a lot to do here after you retire here. The price of booze is so cheap, and all of us Brits come from a drinking culture, so you could say we are keeping that culture going here as well.”
When asked tentatively, if she thinks she may have a teeny bit of a drink problem, June gets upset, orders another V&T then accuses me of “snooping around ordinary folk, who just want to have a good time and be left in peace to drink when they bloody well want to, as they do no harm.”
When I pointed out that they might just do some serious harm if they drove their car home after their drinking session, their response was somewhat typical. “No one ever breathalyses during the day and anyway, we always drive slowly and we have never had an accident here.”

“I have two big fears in my life,” confides John, a 60-year-old retired supermarket manager. “The fear of not sleeping and the fear of running out of alcohol.”
John admits to drinking on average 12 pints a day topped up with whisky and wine come the evening. Since he retired here his weight has ballooned by three stone, and he also suffers from jaundice.
“I never really drank a lot when I was working, perhaps a Friday night down the pub with mates, but here I drink every day. I could easily stop if I wanted to, it’s just that I don’t want to. It makes me feel better than I would if I was stone cold sober.

Margaret, 69, used to be a drinker of some note until she joined Alcoholics Anonymous and climbed aboard the teetotal wagon.
“I joined AA and learned that if I stopped drinking the illness stops where it is, and I could get my life back again. It wasn’t easy giving up. Alcohol is a master seducer but also a professional killer, and when you join AA you are signing up for a free life membership, and it’s one that has kept me alive.”
Since she’s been sober, Margaret has found it terrifying the way older British people drink.
“This isn’t just about socialising. This is like using alcohol as an anesthetic. They self-medicate to block out the fear of ageing, losing one’s looks, poverty, loneliness, ill health, death, or whatever. When I used to drink these were the only subjects talked about within my circle.
“I also think the British are so uptight as a race, they certainly do need a few shots to help make them seem less tight arsed and more approachable. You wouldn’t believe some of the people I knew who were initially painfully shy, but after a few drinks they then turned into a right embarrassment.

Donald is now over 80. He was an alcoholic for most of his life until seven years ago he admitted his addiction and joined AA he has not touched a drop since, and now acts as one of the team of volunteers on the AA national helpline.
“It’s not alcoholic’s surroundings that are the problem,” he said. “It’s the alcoholic him or herself that’s the problem. When one talks about alcoholics, it’s always noticeable that it’s not the differences in each person’s story but the similarities. We can have people who stay off the bottle for 3-4 months then slip back and start drinking again.”
He said there more men and women above the age of 45 seeking help from the AA. “That could be looked at as them deciding they really do want to change their life, something the young don’t always consider until they are older, believing they will live for ever.”
A spokesman from the AA confirmed they really were anonymous even in a small community like Cyprus. None would divulge any details of their members, and neither would they go into specifics of cases relating to elderly alcoholics. One thing however that is important to know is the basic requirement needed to join any AA group, its the genuine need by the person to want to give up drinking.
One spokesperson for AA explained: “Alcoholics invariably encounter feelings of loneliness, fear, defeat and shame, but that’s all part of the intrinsic art of being alcoholic. If people feel coming to attend an open AA meeting isn’t for them, then we can always arrange for an AA member to make a personal visit to their home.”

Cyprus Mail

Alcoholics could be pushed to treatment

Parks, maybe. Alleys, for sure. Doorways are always an option because they provide cover.

Hard-core alcoholics forced off San Diego beaches because of the recent booze ban are taking their addiction elsewhere – and some in nearby communities are noticing.

San Diego police are responding to more complaints from businesses and residents in Ocean Beach about an increasing number of homeless people drinking in alleys, said spokeswoman Monica Munoz.

Transients also are heading south from the beach to the more isolated Sunset Cliffs and drinking, she said, so police are spending more time there, too.

Police who patrol the neighborhoods of Pacific Beach and Mission Beach, where the ban is also in effect, haven't seen the same problems, she said.

An organization that treats San Diego's worst drunks through a six-month process called the Serial Inebriate Program – or SIP – is preparing for a spike in clients because of the ban.

The thinking is that more drunks will get arrested because they can't call the beach home, meaning more will be forwarded to the program.

“We're concerned,” said Deni McLagan, of the Mid-Coast Regional Recovery Center, which runs SIP. The idea came from the San Diego Police Department in 2000 and involves a number of city and county agencies.

“We're going to see the number of arrests go up dramatically,” McLagan said.

Officer Larry Fixsen, a member of the department's Homeless Outreach Team, said that before the booze ban, it was hard for police to do anything when it came to transients drinking at the beach.

While it's against the law to be drunk in public, hard-core alcoholics have an unbelievable ability to function, even when hammered, he said.

They could have a blood-alcohol level of 0.30 – more than three times the legal driving limit – and seem pretty much normal, he said. So police couldn't arrest them at the beach, even if they were well into an 18-pack of beer.

“As long as they're not a danger to themselves or others, you can't do much about it,” Fixsen said.

'Anywhere you can'
People sent to detox more than five times in a month no longer get the luxury of sleeping it off without consequence. The sixth time, they go to jail.

If they keep getting arrested, the jail time swells. Instead of a few days or a month, they might face six months or more. Eventually some get an offer: Do the time or enter the Serial Inebriate Program.

Participants in the program get housing, medical care, counseling, job training and more. It's an intensive effort to help alcoholics.

The treatment benefits the clients and society. Transient alcoholics – most of whom are white, middle-aged men – place tremendous strain on police and legal and medical systems. They routinely get arrested, jailed or sent to emergency rooms because of drinking-related injuries.

A study at the University of California San Diego showed that 15 chronic alcoholics racked up $1.5 million in medical costs during one 18-month period in the late 1990s. Another study done from 2000 to 2003 showed that medical costs incurred by those in SIP dropped 50 percent while they were in the program.

Until February, drunks could spend up to eight hours a day drinking at the beach, where alcohol was permitted from noon until 8 p.m.

“For many guys, it was a constant routine,” said Dan Walker, 46, a former beach drinker who is now a SIP participant.

But a Labor Day melee last year persuaded city leaders to enact a one-year trial ban on drinking at the beach. So far, 157 citations have been issued. Although the ban was meant to stop binge drinking among young beachgoers, it also brought a dramatic change for transient alcoholics.

John Workman, 51, a homeless man who was hanging out in Pacific Beach on a recent day, used to drink on the beach. Asked where drinkers go now, he said: “Anywhere you can.”

Getting sober
SIP welcomes the alcohol ban and what it may portend for the program – more clients – because it will give more addicts a chance to get sober. But program leaders are hardly naive of the challenge they face.

They say chronic alcoholics have been drinking like this for years and normally have other problems, too, such as mental challenges.

Most of the participants fail. Many fail multiple times.

SIP has the capacity to handle about 15 to 20 clients at a time. Last year, it assessed 184 clients and accepted 74. Of those, 21 graduated.

It has a budget of $240,000, with the money coming from the city of San Diego, San Diego County and El Cajon, where SIP also operates.

About 36 percent of the clients manage to graduate from the program. Once they're done, though, they might continue drinking.

“We anticipate it,” McLagan said of the failures. The national average for success in treatment programs is only about 10 percent, she said.

Michael Terry, 60, who was sitting in a business doorway in Pacific Beach, smoking a cigarette, still drinks. When asked if he used to drink on the beach, he said, “Yes.” He was silent a moment, then added: “Not just yes. Hell yes.”

Terry is an example of SIP's challenges. He went through the program, he said, yet he's still a drinker.

Walker doesn't go to the beach anymore, but it's not because of the ban. One of SIP's rules is to stay clear of the beach areas, ban or no ban. Going back could trigger his drinking.

The former construction worker and father of two has been sober for more than 120 days. He had been on the streets, off and on, for seven years, and it was killing him.

Walker woke up once in an emergency room with a tube down his throat. He had had a seizure on the streets and cracked open his skull.

He got into SIP when he found himself facing a year in jail. He lobbied for it hard. “Before, I wasn't ready for this,” Walker said.

A man who called himself “Hamburger” still isn't ready. He was collecting cans at Mission Bay one recent afternoon. He'll keep on drinking, he said, just in more isolated areas.

“Out of sight, out of mind.”

Sign On San Diego

Alert to Alcoholic hepatitis

Alcohol has long been associated with serious liver diseases such as hepatitis - inflammation of the liver. But the relationship between drinking and alcoholic hepatitis is complex. Only a small percentage of heavy drinkers develop alcoholic hepatitis, yet the disease can occur in people who drink only moderately or binge just once. And though damage from alcoholic hepatitis often can be reversed in people who stop drinking, the disease is likely to progress to cirrhosis and liver failure in people who continue to drink. For them, alcoholic hepatitis may be fatal.

Causes

* Genetic factors. Having mutations in certain genes that affect alcohol metabolism may increase your risk of alcoholic liver disease as well as of alcohol-associated cancers. Genetic factors may account for half of any person's susceptibility to alcohol-related disease.

* Other types of hepatitis. Long-term alcohol abuse worsens the liver damage caused by other types of hepatitis, especially hepatitis C. If you have hepatitis C and also drink - even moderately - you are more likely to develop cirrhosis than is someone who doesn't drink.

* Other diseases. People who drink alcohol are more likely to develop alcoholic hepatitis if they also have another disease that affects the liver, such as diabetes or iron overload (hemochromatosis) - a disorder in which the body stores too much iron.

* Obesity. Although most researchers agree that obesity makes alcoholic liver disease worse, exactly why this is so isn't clear. It may be that alcohol causes fatty tissue to produce certain hormones and cytokines - immune system proteins that increase inflammation.

* Malnutrition. Many people who drink heavily are malnourished, either because they eat poorly - often substituting alcohol for food - or because alcohol and its toxic byproducts prevent the body from properly absorbing and metabolizing nutrients, especially protein, certain vitamins and fats. In both cases, the lack of nutrients contributes to liver cell damage. It was once thought that malnutrition, rather than alcohol, caused alcoholic liver disease. Now, the relationship between the two appears more complicated. But it's certain that drinking leads to malnutrition, which damages the liver and contributes to some of the serious complications of alcoholic liver disease.

Risk factors

* Alcohol use. Consistent heavy drinking or binge drinking is the primary risk factor for alcoholic hepatitis, though it's hard to precisely define heavy drinking. Some experts believe that four or more drinks a day for men and two or more a day for women greatly increase the risk of liver damage. Moderate drinking is usually defined as no more than two drinks a day for men and one for women. But because people vary greatly in their sensitivity to alcohol, that amount may not actually be moderate for everyone. Whether certain types of alcohol cause more harm than others also is a matter of debate. Some experts believe that wine is less damaging than hard liquor is, although it may be that wine drinkers generally tend to have healthier lifestyles.

* Age. The effects of alcoholic hepatitis are most likely to show up after years of heavy drinking, but symptoms of disease can develop in people as young as 20.

* Your sex. Women are two to three times as likely to develop alcoholic liver disease as men are. It takes less alcohol to harm the liver in women, and when liver disease occurs, it progresses more quickly than it does in men. This disparity may result from differences in the way alcohol is absorbed and broken down. Because women tend to metabolize alcohol more slowly, their livers are exposed to the higher blood concentrations of alcohol for longer periods of time - with potentially greater toxicity. The slow rate of alcohol metabolism in women may be due to lower levels of stomach enzymes that break down alcohol, the effects of estrogen or even the size of a woman's liver.

* Genetic factors. Researchers have discovered a number of genetic mutations that affect the way alcohol is metabolized in the body. Having one or more of these mutations may increase the risk of alcoholic liver disease and liver cancer.

Complications

* Increased blood pressure in the portal vein. Blood from your intestine, spleen and pancreas enters your liver through a large blood vessel called the portal vein. If scar tissue blocks normal circulation through the liver, this blood backs up, leading to increased pressure within the vein.

* Enlarged veins (varices). When circulation through the portal vein is blocked, blood may back up into other blood vessels in the stomach and esophagus. These blood vessels are thin walled, and because they're filled with more blood than they're meant to carry, they're likely to bleed.

* Fluid retention. Alcoholic liver disease can cause large amounts of fluid to accumulate in your abdominal cavity (ascites).

* Bruising and bleeding. Alcoholic hepatitis interferes with the production of proteins that help your blood clot and with the absorption of vitamin K, which plays a role in synthesizing these proteins. As a result, you may bruise and bleed more easily than normal. Bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract is particularly common.

* Jaundice. This occurs when your liver isn't able to remove bilirubin - the residue of old red blood cells - from your blood. Eventually, bilirubin builds up and is deposited in your skin and the whites of your eyes, causing a yellow color.

* Hepatic encephalopathy. A liver damaged by alcoholic hepatitis has trouble removing toxins from your body - normally one of the liver's key tasks. The buildup of toxins such as ammonia can damage your brain, leading to changes in your mental state, behavior and personality.

* Cirrhosis. This serious condition, which is an insidious and irreversible scarring of the liver. Cirrhosis frequently leads to liver failure, which occurs when the damaged liver is no longer able to adequately function.

Sri Lanka Daily Mirror

Young Europeans Drink To Increase Chance of Sex

A new study of young adults in nine European countries found that nearly one in four women and one in three men deliberately engage in binge drinking and drug use to improve their chances of sex.

The study also found that young people were more at risk of unsafe sex while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The research involved 1,341 young people aged 16 to 35 in nine cities, one each in the UK, Austria, Germany, Greece, Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. All the participants regularly frequented pubs, bars and nightclubs.

While the U.K. has long had a reputation for underage sex and binge drinking, the similarities between Britain and the other countries examined in the study were remarkable.

The researchers found that a third of the young men and 23% of the women reported they consumed alcohol to increase their chance of sex.

Although the association between risky sexual behavior and the use of drugs and alcohol has been long known, this particular study showed that young adults were engaging in the behavior ‘strategically’, in an attempt to improve their sex lives.

The study also revealed that the early use of drugs and alcohol was closely linked to having sex under the age of 16 years, particularly in girls.

Almost half of participants in Vienna, Austria had consumed alcohol and had sex by the time they were 16, compared with 37% in Palma, Spain, 36% in Venice, Italy, and 30% in Liverpool.

Similar results were found for those under age 16 who took drugs, but the researchers found variations in popularity of different drugs among the countries involved in the study. More than one in four young adults surveyed reported using cocaine to prolong sex, and the researchers found the drug was also linked to having multiple partners.

The study also found a strong association between the use of drugs and alcohol and an increase in risky behavior and regret about having had sex. Participants who reported being drunk in the previous four weeks were more likely to have five or more partners and to have had sex without the use of condoms. They were also more likely to report having regretted sex after consuming drugs or alcohol in the past year.

The study found the use of Cannabis, cocaine or ecstasy produced similar consequences among the participants.

Professor Mark Bellis, director of the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moore's University and the study’s lead researcher, told BBC News: "Millions of young Europeans now take drugs and drink in ways which alter their sexual decisions and increase their chances of unsafe sex or sex that is later regretted.

"Yet despite the negative consequences, we found many are deliberately taking these substances to achieve quite specific sexual effects."

Bellis added that substance abuse strategies and efforts to promote safe sexual behavior must consider the fact that the two were inextricably linked.

"When it comes to drugs and alcohol young people learn from us, the adults who help determine the culture in which young people are learning about sex, and learning about drugs and alcohol. "Sex and relationships education also needs to include more discussion about the association between alcohol, drugs and unsafe sex," Simon Blake, chief executive of Brook, told BBC News.

"The report is a good reminder of the multiple dimensions of drink-related harm," Frank Sodeen of Alcohol Concern told BBC News, adding that local authorities should think comprehensively about projects to reduce alcohol use and incorporate sexual health issues.

red Orbit

24 hour drinking could be banned

24 hour drinking could be banned in Surrey, if enough people give support in an online alcohol survey.

Health bosses have been quizzing people on their drinking habits and alcohol knowledge to tackle the county's "hazardous drinking" problem.

So far, more than 350 people have filled in the big drink debate survey, but the PCT hopes more than 10,000 will take part over the next five months.

Last November, Elmbridge was ranked the eighth worst place in the country for hazardous drinking - an amount above healthy levels of around three units a day, but below binge drinking. Of the top ten most hazardous drinking areas in the UK, seven were in Surrey.

Now Surrey PCT wants to use the information from the survey to influence how the dangers of alcohol are taught in local schools, whether more rehab centres are needed, and if tougher licensing on 24 hour drinking would prevent people drinking as much.

It could mean the seven places with 24 hour licenses in the borough could have them removed in future - including Mercedes Benz World, Sainsbury's in Cobham and Walton, and the Oatlands Park Hotel, Weybridge.

The survey covers subjects including whether happy hours should be banned and if there are too many off licenses in the local area.

Surrey PCT's Director of Public Health, Anna Raleigh, has denied taking too much of a nanny-state approach.

She said: "We are not talking about demonising alcohol here. There is a recognition that alcohol is a part of British culture and people can use alcohol in a safe, sensible and social way.

"But there are some people who are drinking alcohol excessively and that is having an impact on the whole of society."

Your Local Guardian

Turning point for problem drinkers

A pioneering support service set up at Sunderland Royal Hospital to help problem drinkers battle the booze has been hailed a massive success.

A survey revealed that about one in four admissions to A&E is connected to alcohol, and about 40 to 50 per cent of these are falls.

Geoff Anderson, who runs the outreach service with Rophas Ndlovu, said that in the past year alone it has helped more than 500 patients.

"It's gone really well," Mr Anderson told the Echo.

"It's all about getting people to take part in the scheme, convincing them, and getting them the help they need.

"With some people it only takes one session, but with others it can take longer.

"And now there are two of us, we can cover a wider area of the hospital and help patients in other departments."

Mr Anderson said that A&E departments were often the first point of contact patients have with a hospital and can be an excellent location in which to engage patients with alcohol problems.

Staff also look out for what some call A&E "frequent flyers", regular patients who are either worse the wear for drink or recovering from alcohol-related injuries.

"When someone comes to A&E, a member of staff will ask them to fill out a very short questionnaire and from that we can determine whether or not they need help," said Mr Anderson.

"If they do, we try to make contact and provide the support they need."

Despite the old, stereotypical image of the problem drinker, Mr Anderson said that up to 40 per cent of the people he sees are female, often from professional or white-collar backgrounds.

"Many people have an image of a problem drinker as a tramp with the can of super-strength lager, but the truth is about 90 per cent are in stable accommodation," he said.

"We speak to individuals from various backgrounds, from the homeless to the businessman in the million-pound house.

"We meet professionals, artists, people whose lifestyles have maybe caught up with them."

Sunderland Echo

Boozy pre-teens in hospital

Schoolchildren under the age of 13 are being admitted to hospital in the Lothians on an almost monthly basis after abusing alcohol.

New figures show 11 children aged 12 and under had to spend at least one night in hospital due to drinking alcohol in the year to last April.

The figures were today described as "chilling", while experts warned children who start drinking so young run the risk of developing serious problems in their adolescence.

Health chiefs have warned society must take the issue of young people drinking to excess and endangering their lives on cocktails of drugs seriously.

Today, a spokesman for the NCH children's charity, which runs Help for Young People in Edinburgh (Hype), warned that many teenagers who seek help for alcohol problems in their teens started drinking early.

Hype offers support and counselling to older teenagers who have sought help – or had help sought on their behalf by parents or teachers – for alcohol problems.

He said: "If the question is are there many children under the age of 12 starting to drink, our experience is yes – it is not unheard of among children aged eight and nine.

"The situation where that's happening is where there's a lot of alcohol in the home, or when they are hanging out a lot with an older group.

"It is the kids starting off at that age who we are picking up at 17 and 18. There are concerns about children who start aged eight or nine, and carry on until they are drinking more and more.

"They have problems with behaviour, problems with school attendance, all sorts of things."

The figure was derived from a parliamentary question asked by Lothians MSP Gavin Brown, showing that 59 children under 15 had been admitted to hospital, and previous NHS Lothian figures which revealed 48 of them were aged 13 or 14. Mr Brown said: "These statistics are absolutely chilling.

"We have seen in recent years the number of people discharged from hospital with alcoholic liver disease more than doubling and these latest figures raise fears that the problem of alcoholic liver disease is likely to get worse.

"It is vitally important that the Scottish Government acts quickly to tackle the problem."

David Steedman, A&E consultant, said the number of children brought into acute hospitals because of alcohol was "very small". He added: "It does happen from time to time, and may be due to a one-off incident in the home rather than indicate a deeper problem.

"However, the issue of young people taking alcohol or drugs is one that society should take very seriously.

"It is clearly a matter of concern that there are vulnerable young people who are being exposed to alcohol and drugs."

Edinburgh Evening News

Cut-price alcohol in binge spotlight

I'm just distraught that our kids are affected by this, because we adults are influencing this behaviour.Roy Ramsey, Blenheim Drug Arm chairman

A Blenheim social worker has accused supermarkets of using cut-price alcohol to lure shoppers and is urging them to have a social conscience.

Blenheim Drug Arm chairman Roy Ramsey said the practice of using alcohol as a loss leader, where it is sold at low or below cost prices to attract customers, was "abhorrent", as the cheap prices encouraged binge drinking and meant supermarket food shoppers were subsidising losses from beer and wine sales.

Support for Mr Ramsey's call has come from the Hospitality Association of New Zealand (Hanz) and the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (Alac), who want legislation to prevent the practice.

Alan Malcolmson, general manager of retail operations for Foodstuffs, said it "generally did not" sell beer and wine for less than wholesale prices. However, the cheap prices were necessary in the face of stiff competition, he said."The margins are slim and it depends on where we need to be competitive. It's not every day that we have to sell for less than we buy," said Mr Malcolmson.

Foodstuffs owns New World, Pak'nSave and Four Square supermarkets,

In Invercargill, where alcohol is not sold in super-markets, binge drinking is an issue just as it is in any other New Zealand town, says the Salvation Army and the Invercargill Licensing Trust.

Mr Ramsey and Hanz chief executive Bruce Robertson both said supermarkets had promised not to use alcohol as loss leaders when the amendment to the Sale of Liquor Act 1989 allowing beer sales in supermarkets was discussed during the 1999 parliamentary select committee hearings.

Mr Malcolmson said he did not know of such a commitment.

Mr Ramsey said Marlborough's alcohol-related problems were evident in comments by Marlborough police area commander inspector Steve Caldwell, who said 80 percent of all crime was attributed to alcohol.

"Is it responsible to keep pushing your business on the demise of society?" asked Mr Ramsey.

"I'm just distraught that our kids are affected by this, because we adults are influencing this behaviour."

Mr Malcolmson said the industry was "extremely competitive" and Foodstuffs had to follow suit.

Mr Ramsay said he recog-nised that liquor stores also sold alcohol at discounted prices, but the difference was they did not sell food and they had not ignored commitments to refrain from using beer and wine as loss leaders.

Mr Robertson said people often bought large quantities of alcohol at cheap prices from off-licensed providers such as supermarkets and drank it to "get smashed". Frequently they then went to the pubs, bars and clubs in intoxicated states and caused problems for staff and other patrons.

He acknowledged the hospitality industry had an interest in people drinking at on-licensed premises rather than drinking alcohol bought from off-licenses but said it was important they took some community responsibility.

"I want the supermarkets to sit back and actually think about their alcohol prices. I know they are commercial but for them to have a social conscience as well would be great," said Mr Robertson.

Mr Malcolmson said Food-stuffs was "definitely socially aware" and cited its supervisory intervention on all checkouts for all alcohol purchases, checking for underage buyers.

ALAC chief executive Gerard Vaughan said legislation was needed to prevent supermarkets from using alcohol as a loss leader.

"We are really concerned about the cheap availability of alcohol in supermarkets as we know that, for some population groups, there is a link between the price of alcohol and excess consumption."

He said it was well-known New Zealand had a binge drinking culture.

"New Zealanders tend to drink until it's all gone and price is linked with that."

Mr Ramsey said he was challenging society: "I am saying these things (problems) will happen so are we going to bury our heads in the sand about it?"

Alcohol is not sold in Invercargill supermarkets because the Invercargill Licensing Trust holds the right to off-premises liquor sales under the Sale of Liquor Act.

Its human resources manager, Greg McElhinney, said he thought this made no difference to instances of binge drinking.

The Salvation Army's Invercargill director of supportive accommodation services, Simon Stevens, said he thought the city's binge drinking problem was "no better and no worse" than any other New Zealand town.

Progressive Enterprises, which owns Foodtown, Woolworths, Countdown, Fresh Choice and SuperValue supermarkets, said in a statement it aimed to balance its role of providing customers with a competitive offer in all categories with its responsibility to uphold laws governing the responsible sale of alcohol.

Marlborough Express

Blackouts: the nasty secret of weekend drinking

Blackout from drinking on the weekend, recount the incident in class Monday for comic effect.

Samantha Pitman, a peer health educator at Miami University, understands why students spin stories about excessive drinking.

"People can let their hair down in front of their friends and tell all about stupid things they did at a bar," she said. "But when it comes to saying stuff like that (to counselors), they're embarrassed that they made a fool of themselves by blacking out."

According to Aaron M. White, a research professor at Duke University Medical Center, blackouts are periods of amnesia which occur after excessive alcohol consumption. The term doesn't necessarily mean that the individual passes out. Often, they can continue to move and talk, but they don't have any memory of what they do.

"Blackouts occur because alcohol enters the body at a rapid rate," White writes on his alcohol research Web site. "The brain is unable to form new long-term memories" when binge drinking occurs.

White believes that the college culture promotes binge drinking — essentially supporting blackouts.

A survey by the Harvard School of Public Health surveyed 15,000 students at more than 100 colleges, and 51 percent said they experienced at least one blackout during a drinking experience.

"Most kids coming to college see MTV or movies that glorify partying and crazy behavior," Pitman said. "They hear about college parties and think they need to drink and get out of control."

A junior at Miami, who wished to remain anonymous, said he got drunk for a fraternity bonding night. After several shots of liquor and two 40-ounce bottles of beer, he vomited in a trash can — but couldn't remember anything after that point.

"I came back around in someone else's house," he said. "I ... blacked out again."

According to Janice Dyehouse, a nursing professor at the University of Cincinnati, women are more likely to experience a blackout because their brains are affected quicker than males — after only four drinks.

Wendy McGonigal, director of student health service at Wright State University, said she wishes students would end their acceptance of binge drinking.

"I wish I could solve this problem, I really do," McGonigal said. "But it's an enormous problem that won't be solved until it becomes socially unacceptable."

Oxford Press