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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: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Saturday April 20 2019, @04:43PM (9 children)
Great, so I won't go into town at night, especially near chucking-out time, will just ignore all the street vomit in the morning, and let them piss up all the local gardens when they stagger home at 3am yelling, screaming and fighting e.
h other.
I think you have no idea the problem of drinking in the UK especially.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 20 2019, @04:55PM
I'd say the bigger problem is drunkyards at the wheel. Anyway, taxation is not going to make people less miserable, but more, which doesn't strike me as a very effective thing towards the goal of less drunk people. They will just be more of a burden on their family. Oppa Bureaucrat style.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @05:17PM (3 children)
Binge drinking is not heavy drinking. Heavy drinking is the guy with the middle class job who consumes a full bottle of wine or the workman who drinks 4 beers every night.
Alcohol lowers social inhibition; it doesn't cause non-violent people to become violent any more than it causes quiet, thoughtful people to begin bellowing like cretins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday April 20 2019, @07:14PM (2 children)
That's not even getting warmed up for a night out! Where are those levels defined as heavy drinking? A quick search reveals the following advice [drinkaware.co.uk]for the UK:
Notice that this is not related to a 'number of beers' but to units of alcohol. A beer can be anything from 250ml to 1000ml, with alcohol contents in the range of 3.0% to 7.5% approximately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20 2019, @08:46PM (1 child)
🍻
They're my recollection of articles on middle class alcoholism a decade or so back. 4 beers (440mm or a pint) is around 12 units a night or 84 units a week - four times higher than recommended weekly amount. It's also classed as "binge drinking". [www.nhs.uk] Most drinkers consume the recommended weekly units in a single session and that amount was considered a working lunch within our lifetimes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @01:01AM
Let's be honest: entire research centers dedicated to studying the problems of alcohol abuse are pretty much by their nature going to consider no drinking at all to be the goal.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:25PM (3 children)
If the problem is vomiting in the street, then arrest and significantly fine the offenders for doing that.
If the problem is pissing in the gardens, then arrest and significantly fine the offenders for doing that.
If the problem is disturbing the peace, then arrest and significantly fine the offenders for doing that.
If the problem is non-consensual violence, then arrest, incarcerate for assault, and significantly fine the offenders for doing that.
etc.
There's no good reason to interfere with someone who is not causing a problem or putting non-consenting others at direct risk of harm. It is an outright travesty of liberty.
The urge to regulate informed, personal or consensual behavior because someone else is a fuckup (or worse) is a common, and highly toxic, legislative malady.
---
Also, if your beer wasn't so murky and foul-tasting that your pub-goers are inspired to drink until they outright can't taste it, that might help too. 😊
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The second line of this sig is hilarious.
The first line of this sig was misinformed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday April 20 2019, @09:23PM (1 child)
LOL "Arrest" means "more money from taxes spent to contain a behavior" and does nothing to address the causes. "More money" means "more taxes".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Sunday April 21 2019, @05:02PM
Raising taxes on alcohol does nothing to address the cause, either. But it punishes those who drink in moderation.
Why do people drink to excess? Why are some anti-social when they do? I believe there are some root causes that are ignored or not understood.
If you are convicted of behaviour that infringes on the rights of others, then you should be liable for the costs you incurred on others.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @12:47AM
Right. Create the conditions for drunkenness to happen (the proudly, internationally touted, hip nightlife zones), and then SET THEM ON FIRE when they do get drunk!
Gee, could all those bars and nightclubs have ANYTHING to do with this? I mean, what the hell do you expect to happen?
Nevermind, city officials, keep collecting all that tax money and pretend you had nothing to do with it.