Saturday 2 March 2013

About that underage drinking...

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Yesterday "The Doctors" were in full cry about alcohol and "the children":

Sir Ian Gilmore, the AHA's chair, said action was especially urgent given that UK teenagers drink much more than the European average.

Well it may be 'much more' (although, like the £55 billion 'cost to society' of alcohol, this is unevidenced and probably untrue) but it isn't very much:

Regular alcohol consumption by 11 to 15 year olds has fallen by two-thirds in the last decade - from 20% to 7% - and the proportion of these children who had ever drunk alcohol fell from 61% to 45% in the same period.

As always - and it should worry us - "The Doctors" just make stuff up about health risks knowing that reporters who stopped any studying of science at 14 will simply believe everything they're told.

Quite simply, we really don't have the problem with booze that prohibitionists and temperance campaigners like Sir Ian Gilmore would have you believe.

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