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posted by janrinok on Saturday April 20 2019, @03:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the Isssh-nothing-to-be-proud-of,-hic,-hic dept.

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: 2) by RS3 on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:02PM (8 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:02PM (#832648)

    Drunk driving is a huge problem. Semi-socialized medicine (govt. and insurance) costs society (that's you and me) hugely in health degradation, diseases, accidents of all kinds, assaults, on and on, due to alcohol.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by fyngyrz on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:32PM (5 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Saturday April 20 2019, @06:32PM (#832657) Journal

    Drunk driving is a huge problem ...  due to alcohol  due to driving while drunk.

    FTFY

    And, of course, the correct answer is to severely fine and incarcerate these criminals for proactively putting non-consenting others at risk of harm. There's no good reason at all that society should tolerate such behavior even slightly.

    To the dumbasses among us: If you've been drinking, Do. Not. Drive.

    Interfering with people who are not putting others at risk with their behavior is simply tyranny.

    --
    "You the bomb."
    "No, you the bomb.
    ...
    A complement in the USA.
    An argument in the middle east.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday April 20 2019, @07:58PM (2 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Saturday April 20 2019, @07:58PM (#832676)

      1) I don't understand what happens to people's minds on these Internet forums. I've guessed for years that people do in their minds what you just did in print- you took what I wrote, changed it, then commented on it, as if I wrote it, and what I wrote needed fixing. There's a period after "problem" in what I wrote. You fixed what you imagined. Please do not change what I wrote and then fix it.

      2) I think most people agree with you, as I certainly do, and it seems pretty much obvious. The problem: when there's alcohol in a person, they are unable to think clearly, which is partly why they end up drinking too much. Mature, responsible people hand their car keys to someone else before drinking.

      I've had a bit of exposure to alcoholics, treatments, Al-anon, etc. There is a serious true chemical dependency problem in many people. My hope has been that medical science will somehow figure out the mechanism and find a biological cure. Part of the problem: to an alcoholic, drinking is not a special or unusual thing; rather, it's normal, and not having alcohol is unusual.

      Somewhere I recently read that car manufacturers will start putting breathalyzers in all cars. I hope they're foolproof.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:28PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:28PM (#832987)

        Somewhere I recently read that car manufacturers will start putting breathalyzers in all cars. I hope they're foolproof.

        Yup, yessir, foolproof! These here gadgawhatchamacallits, they're perfect, just like everything else on a modern car. Electric windows that never fail, aircon that's cold as the arctic, heat that never blows in the wrong direction, sound systems that integrate perfectly with every new generation of electronics ...

        While we're talking, I don't want a car. I want a pegasus, so I can fly over the traffic.

        And make it foolproof.

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday April 21 2019, @07:54PM

          by RS3 (6367) on Sunday April 21 2019, @07:54PM (#833094)

          Is there such a thing as a partial "whooosh"?

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @06:13AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 21 2019, @06:13AM (#832868)

      re: your sig.
      Complement - something that meshes well with something else
      Compliment - say something nice about someone

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday April 20 2019, @08:43PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday April 20 2019, @08:43PM (#832689) Journal

    Ban skis.
    Ban bicycles, especially mountain bikes.
    Ban jogging.
    Ban boating.
    Ban walking on the road.
    Ban back country hiking.
    Ban driving on snowy roads, wet roads, roads at sundown/sunset in the direction of the setting/rising sun.
    blah blah blah blah

    The whole argument along the lines of "X costs me money via medical services or whatever" is just a slightly more evolved way of being a nosy insufferable moralistic hypocritical prick while doing things that cost other people money. I drink approximately 2 units of alcohol per month -- I don't have a dog in this fight -- but it isn't my place to tell other people how to risk their health whether that be by jogging up to knee replacements or drowning in booze. That's their business.

  • (Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:54PM

    by Tokolosh (585) on Sunday April 21 2019, @04:54PM (#833004)

    "...costs society..." Why is that. Because the Harm Principle has been contravened. Two wrongs don't make a right.