Blog 3 (Government on alcohol)

Top medic looks to take on "binge drinking"
Date: 15 March, 2009
URL: http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKTRE52E0XE20090315

I read this article in REUTERS UK medics and hospitals are convincing the government to rise alcohol prices because of Binge drinking
-Britain has the 10th highest alcohol consumption in the world, according to the World Health Organisation, with the equivalent of nearly 12 litres of pure alcohol consumed by each member of the population per year.
- While The National Health Service spends more than $4 billion (2.9 billion pounds) a year treating alcohol-related illnesses, with around 400,000 people admitted to hospital with drink problems, according to government figures. A sizeable number are children under 14.

What a scam by the government in my opinion instead of putting more regulation they just want to rise the price just so they can benefit from it instead of more so for health reasons. A smarter suggestion would be why not put restriction in shops to sell or periods of times in the day when they can sell or age limits, rising the price wont change the consumption. From my personal experience when I have a glass and get little woozy I'm not that price sensitive. 3 Billion pounds a year treating alcohol consumers and an outstanding 25 billion in damages those number are big especially when considering the population to some larger countries. But the problem is alcohol is heavily commercialized in the UK, yeah probably rising prices would have an affect for now but people would get accustomed to the prices and they just wont care as long as they have their drink. I'm not British but I believe this is just way for the reeling UK government to get more money from the people because they know it will bring a huge amount of revenue.