Scotland has again been placed at the top of the world league for cocaine consumption.
Figures published by the United Nations show that 3.9% of Scottish residents aged between 16 and 64 used the drug in the past year.
That was a higher proportion than in any other country and compares to 2.5% for England and Wales.
The figures also showed Scotland with a rate of heroin use twice that of the rest of the United Kingdom.
EASY! WE ARRA PEOPLE! FIRST AGAIN! (Is it the weather, or can we just no longer afford the bevvy)?
11 comments:
Aye - and when the SNP make alcohol unaffordable for kids we'll have the highest incidence of glue and petrol sniffing. Nothin like attacking the symptoms and ignoring the disease for winning elections.
McGonners, well where do I start?
Speaking as someone who has problems with drink, I think might have some input. I've drunk about a bottle of vodka a day since my mid 20s, well over 30 years. It must have cost me well over £100,000 at today's prices. I've barely drunk and I'm talking about once every 3 months or so, for 3 years and I didn't drink at all for a year. I laugh when I hear someone described as a 'reformed alcoholic', because there is no such thing. You either are or you aren't. Even now I have to watch myself like a hawk around drink. I had a few on holiday recently and was surprised just how quickly I fell back into my old ways, which I won't bother going in to, but another alcoholic would know.
So where do we start. The Scot has a liking for drink that is a national disgrace really. There are too many fine Scots who die of liver failure. Does raising the minimum price, so that as many youngsters aren't tempted to get into the habit, I don't know, but I know we have to try something. Raising the minimum price won't increase a bottle of whisky but it will hit alcopops and it's that type of drink that starts youngsters on the slippery path. I've recently seen 3 litre bottle of 7% volume cider being sold for £1.50 in Iceland and 24 cans of beer for £10 in Tescos and that's too cheap. Kids are getting pissed out of their skulls in the house before they even go out and if they left it there perhaps there wouldn't be the same problem, but they are popping pills then because their common sense has been affected by being drunk.
I'm told by people who know about these things that a bag of 'charlie' can be had for a fiver. So obviously there is a correlation between the price and the intake if we are the top of the world league for consumption. So I think, old fuckers like you and I should stop worrying about a bottle of wine costing another £0.25 in the supermarket and bite the bullet for the future health of our country.
@Dark Lochnagar - I disagree and I'll tell why -
1) If the kids want the drink they'll find the money just as they do for heroin or cocaine or anything else
2) When I was a youngster 15 or 16 I was able to go the local county darts or pool in pubs and clubs and purchase either a black & tan or snakebite .. I never abused that privilige; because I was eductated by parents and trutsed to show commonsense .. the problem lies solely in how the family units function .. from respect, authority, trust , mutual agreement .. and knowing you getting the living crap beaten out of you for defying rules and breaking the trust.
pricing is pissing in the wind ..
excuse the shoddy grammar and spelling .. couldnae be arsed correcting it ...
Oh and another wee small flaw ..
" I'm told by people who know about these things that a bag of 'charlie' can be had for a fiver "
If you price drink out of reach ... where do you imagine the £10 for 24 cans is going to be spent ????
Maverick, You're obviously coming from the other end of the spectrum. You're not allowed to hit kids nowadays, or so I'm told. I think you have a prevalence for drink. I have an addictive personality, be it for drink or smoking. Fortunately I've managed to keep away from gambling!
I think in many ways that Drugs are less of a problem than with drink. Drinking is socially acceptable. We laugh when we see someone with too much drink as long as they're not violent. That doesn't apply to drugs therefore I think people are less likely to have a problem with drugs on the same scale when they get older and maybe start a family. I'm not talking about the brainless squad who will get out of their skulls on anything, but maybe the 'middle-class' mother who dies early through alcohol abuse. That sort of thing.
Alcopops and buckfast won't be affected by the minimum pricing DL. Both would be safely within the 40p per unit proposed.
The only people affected b, poorer and older people who wouldn't be able to afford the cheap beers and lagers now available. The guvamint seem to think that poor people buy cheap lager out of preference rather than the fact that it's all they can afford. Believe it or not poor people would actually prefer to drink fine malts and wines ( shocking but true).
oops typo.. the only people affected would be....
Taxers, I take your point, but you have got to start somewhere and it's unfortunately got to be on price. The scot has a problem. I recently as you probably know was in Spain. We were driving so, in a bodega, I bought some decent red and rose wine at E1.10 per litre about a £1. You don't see young Spaniards falling about drunk, only Brits, as soon as they get near the cheap bevvy.
You make my point DL with what you saw in Spain. It's nothing to do with pricing. As you saw in Spain their wine is a quarter the price of ours and yet there's no trouble. Our booze is amongst the most expensive in the world and to think that making it even more expensive will help is pure delusion.
If our polis used their powers to put a stop to the mayhem then it would stop.
Taxers, yes. But it is a particular Scottish and becoming a British problem. It is also a problem the further north you go in Europe. If the drink was as cheap as here in Sweden, Norway and Finland, they would be as pissed as us. But they're not. I don't know if and I believe it probably is, something to do with the climate. we made a move towards a more continental 'cafe culture' some years ago and it has made heehaw difference, in fact it could even be worse. Is it education? When half the country are out of their nuts on booze and drugs, does that educate the young? My parents were both heavy drinkers and it didn't stop me. I remember when I was 16 and in a summer job, drinking in a pub where I could get 8.5 pints to the £1 as it cost 2s4d a pint. If it had bee a £1 a pint would I have been drinking? Eh, no.
Post a Comment