Scottish? You're drinking too much

63% drink more than 2 pints when they have a drink !!

Cart me off to Betty ford then. I'm getting rather tired of research which definitively proves that if you've had a wine-gum in the last month you're a raving alcho and cirrhosis is imminent.

I've been informed that 3 pints is binge drinking, when I was a lad 3 pints was a business lunch. While attempts to improve the /health of the nation/ are laudable perhaps a concentration on working hours and stress levels might be more appropriate. not many stressed French people out there with their 35hr weeks!

@Mr Cowan

You're on the right track, but you don't go quite far enough. Obviously limiting wine to half-bottles makes sense froma safety perspective, but then the determined unhealthy-levels-drinker might be tempted to buy more than one half-bot in order to pursue his self-destructive ways.

So clearly we need legislation that (a) limits wine sales to "safe" quantities (half-bottles) and (b) makes it illegal to buy more than, oh, two half-bottles in a single transaction.

It is, after all, vitally important that the State protects its charges (the people) from themselves. Who knows what they might get up to otherwise?

Rise of The Nannies(tm)

Lester,

New category of paranoid reporting needed, RoTN(tm), strapline "Live slow, die old, leave a wrinkly corpse".

Icon: Paris Hilton's wrinkly bits. Er, maybe not.

John

(founding member of the neoLibertarian Resistance Army)

Wusses

The heaviest drinkers drank more than 4 units?

They must hae serveyd some sort o' namby-pamby tourists frae England.

Scotch Eggs

I just got a scotch egg from Sainsbury's which DIDN'T HAVE THE EGG IN IT!

Clealry a result of excessive drinking in scotland, they're obviously so pissed they forgot the egg.

Conflicting messages

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2232934.stm:

"French researchers found that middle-aged men who had had one heart attack and who drank two or more glasses of wine regularly were 50% less likely than non-drinkers to have a second attack."

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3303805.stm:

"Nowadays, a standard glass of wine is served in a 175ml glass and is often up to 13% ABV, which adds up to 2.3 units."

So, to reduce your risk of a second heart attack, take 4.6 units of red wine per day. (32.2 units per week)

If this is true then why is it that (according to www.drinkaware.co.uk) "The UK Government advises that men should not regularly drink more than three to four units a day and women not more than two to three."

Is it just that nobody really knows?

@Jason

A quite important difference between smokes and drinks are that the guy besides me doesn't get drunk because I drink - unless it is a drinking match, in which case we will break the 4 unit limit in a matter of minutes.

I don't get why the government is fussing so much about it. If they think it is a problem - just increase taxes on alcohol! How hard can it be? Oh, they don't want to suffer the wrath of their electors, you say? Then they should go have a pub lunch to gather the courage!

Another Coopers, please. ;)

Look at it this way

I thought we were due to have a top heavy society with loads of old people. Let us smoke and drink, problem solved.

Who wants to live forever anyway apart from those daft americans.

WOW!!!

Scots drink a lot? What a revelation in discovering that!

Did these people get paid to "research" and state the bloody obvious?

Not France

Let me see, the weather's miserable for most of the year. 'Service' is something that bulls do to cows. People work themselves into a coma to buy ever-increasing amounts of tat and there are too many 'managers' with the management skill level of a galley drummer. 'Entertainment' for too many people consists of either endless servings of Eastenders-quality televised pablum, being jammed into a basement room ("club") with hundreds or strangers with questionable hygiene practices or sitting in a freezing, windswept stadium watching 22 'footballers' practice their mediocre skills.

The national mood is 'depressed', the national sport is skepticism and the national government is a clique of toon cooncillors who couldn't get work in the private sector.

So now, ""Alcohol policy offers another opportunity for the Scottish Government to show leadership once again, and we believe the Scottish people will fully support the government in their efforts."

Awae an' bile yer head, ya wee nyaff.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

It's the middle class Scots I feel sorry for. The government says it's after the middle classes to get them to cut down their drinking. The middle class in Scotland must be as drunk as a bicycle.

This unit thing is rubbish. Other countries have different measures of a unit and the number of them it's 'safe' to drink. Nobody really knows. Anyway, if I don't eat chocolate and don't drink coke but I eat lots of broccoli and drink tea can I drink more alcohol? I don't suppose that argument works for Scots though, didn't another survey 'find out' that they eat bad food too.

Eat what you want, drink what you want. The fire brigade are always there to hoist you up for fifteen quid.

And....

"As a race we've been drinking too much for centuries. We'll continue to drink to much, mostly coz it's fun."

and because it's pissin' wi' rain all the time, where else would we but but in the pub or at the fitba' and then the pub.

You know, I often wonder how the Human race ever survived countless centuries without these jokers. Them and lawyers.

and

the Japanese love their after work drink (it's compulsory) I remember one show I saw where one guy they stopped was the Managing director of a company apparently he'd finished off a large number of beers + several sakes

Another person when asked "arn't you scared you'll die of liver failure"

she replied "no I'm scared I'll die of stress"

That's a feeling I can relate too. Do gooders get fucked I'm going to get tanked.

Independence Now

As a Scot, it makes my blood boil that the RoI and Finland beat us at alcohol related disease just because the English are holding us back.

Baws

"Shaap believes a ban on supermarket cut-price drink promotions could help address the problem."

Utter shite, surely the UK already has some of the highest prices for alcohol in Europe. Raising alcohol prices would either make people more skint and more in need of a drink, or produce more smack-heids like in Norway where it more financial sense to shoot up than to drink up.

He concluded: "......we believe the Scottish people will fully support the government in their efforts."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA aye richt!

Re: where it more financial sense to shoot up than to drink up.

Already does, I'm sure there was a similar report a bit back saying how the price of E's was so low some young hooligans were going out and getting all loved up rather than fighting and spewing in the street.

How will we maintain the reputation of being europe's pit bull without booze?

Booze

A little safer than Enbalming fluid, still ...it's suicide on the installment plan.

@ JonB

Personally I think all alcoholic drinks should have MDMA added as a matter of course. Would make walking up Sauchiehall St at 4am on a Sunday morning a wee bit less dangerous. Watching the CCTV footage on Police Camera Action would be braw too.

...and if they were not "drinking" what would they be doing ( to excess) ?

Human Thingys are strangely wired creatures and have a serious need to do something to aleviate the boredom of self awareness that amounts to trying to escape from self ... a sort of "stop the world I want to get off" or " stop the world I am really pissed off" . So we see that if it was not the "juice" it could be nail biting , violent scratching or maybe Commenting on the Register ( a manic bunch of Danglers if ever there was)