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Well, according to the television news last night, Scotland drinks about a quarter more alcohol than the rest of the UK.
That amounts to – according to the report – two glasses of wine a week.
Now, call me Mr Cynical, or Mr Media Studies, but that means (if my maths is correct) that in the rest of the UK they drink 8 glasses a week while Scotland drinks ten? Can that be all?
Hmm… I've been for nights out in England from London to Leeds and a good few places in between, and I'd have to say that I've seen people who – never mind 8 glasses a week – are on the 8th glass by about 9pm.
This isn't to defend the Scots alcohol figures – just to say that the figures themselves don't tell the whole story. All 'per capita' figures ever do is provide a statistical tool whereby certain things can be predicted, inferred or quantified. What they can't do is actually provide a figure for each 'capita' – if one guy in England drinks nil glasses a week, and another drinks 15, then the average is 7.5. But only one of them has actually had a drink. Extrapolate that over milliions in a nation and the picture gets impossibly complicated. When you factor in social, economic and cultural components, then the figures don't really say that much at all. Some people are drinking too much? Well, some people always did drink too much.
But it looks like, right now, too many people are drinking too much. Price may be a part of it, but then I've been to places in Europe where the booze is cheaper than lemonade and nobody goes around pie-eyed.
I don't have an answer to this problem (nobody does) but my feeling is that the solution can't come simply from putting tax on bottles, or prohibition or anything thet tends towards governmentalism. It's got to come from offering people more in life than  bottles of wine. Educating them in the pros and cons of alcohol might help. And people who are well informed can then make well informed choices. Choices about things like diet, lifestyle and private medical insurance, and how to get the most from life.

Wine

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