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Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Aussies, Yanks may think they're big drinkers – but Brits easily booze them under the table
The top ten per cent of Australia's boozy population downs more than half of the alcohol consumed in the country, according to new research – and the Brits are even worse.
Two researchers from the La Trobe University, Australia, uncovered the eye popping statistic from two surveys: the 2013 International Alcohol Control Study and the 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, as well as more recent research work.
"We found that the heaviest drinking 10 per cent of Australians drink 54.4 per cent of all alcohol consumed in Australia," said Michael Livingston, co-author of the paper published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health and an alcohol policy expert at La Trobe University, on Thursday this week.
The paper also highlighted the intoxicating habits of other countries too. The US fares slightly worse. Ten per cent of America's population guzzled about 55 per cent of all the boozy beverages. But it looked even more diabolical for the Brits - just four per cent of its population glugged a whopping 30 per cent of all its alcohol and they easily outpace Aussies and Americans.
Livingston and his colleague Sarah Callinan, also a researcher at La Trobe's Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, found that Australia's top alcoholics were more likely to be middle-aged men living in rural areas.
"We know that rural areas have disproportionately high levels of consumption and alcohol-related harm compared to metropolitan areas. We found that 16 per cent of this heavy-drinking subset live in outer regional and remote areas, compared with 10 per cent of other drinkers."
[...] "Clearly government has a responsibility to address the problem of cheap alcohol by fixing the way alcohol is taxed, introducing floor prices and halting the proliferation of harm-causing packaged alcohol sales," he said./p>
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @04:10PM (5 children)
I saw that at the end too. The UK is astoundingly paternalistic. The fact is that no matter what you do, a certain percent of the population is going to focus their lives on some form of intoxicant or another. Make booze too expensive and they'll move on to something else.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 20 2019, @05:18PM
No, the UK is astoundingly maternalistic. God save the queen.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Saturday April 20 2019, @05:58PM (1 child)
Or turn to criminal booze production, distribution, robbery, etc., as was done greatly in the US during "Prohibition" in the 1920s, and as we see with the illegal drug world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @08:07PM
Beer and wine are incredibly easy to make with everyday ingredients (if you don't care about the taste). If people want to concentrate the alcohol, all they need is a freezer to freeze some of the water. And of course moonshine is only slightly difficult. Bans, or as is currently popular, high taxation, cannot solve the issue.
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Sunday April 21 2019, @03:22AM (1 child)
Not really. If you want to see government paternalism over alcohol, google Systembolaget. And remember: Help keep Denmark beautiful, carry a drunk Swede to the ferry.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Sunday April 21 2019, @12:42PM
And the Norwegian version: Vinmonopolet [wikipedia.org]
And the Icelandic version: Vínbúðin [wikipedia.org]
but it is not just a very Northern European thing (Denmark does not have state liquor stores, so it's not a 'Scandinavian' or 'Nordic' thing) - Canada has state controlled liquor stores, as do some states in the USA.
Wikipedia:Category:Alcohol Monopolies [wikipedia.org]
Alcohol and long, dark winters don't seem to play well together. Look at the Russians.