Underage drinking can no longer be seen as just a rite of passage
Smoking is taboo to many people but why is our attitude to booze so different?
DRINKING alcohol is as much a part of Scottish culture as haggis.
After all, we’re the birthplace of whisky. Booze is built into our genes but embracing moderation isn’t.
Our alcohol consumption was, at one point, the highest in the world. Having a bevvy is seen as something to be proud of and has become woven into our national identity.
But health problems aside, much of the crime, particularly of the violent type, we see has its roots in alcohol.
Two in five prisoners say they committed offences while drunk and that figure leaps to about 60 per cent for young offenders.
Minimum pricing on buying drink has had a negligible effect on alcohol-related crime and in areas where there are lots of pubs, clubs and shops, crime rates are significantly higher.
Assaults and breaches of the peace are quite often the result of intoxicated rammies that otherwise wouldn’t happen if the perpetrators, and also the victim, were sober.
If I had a pound for every time someone has said to me, “I wouldn’t have done that without a drink in me” I think I’d be quite wealthy by now.
Alcohol and crime has a complex relationship. Not everyone who drinks will then go on to commit an offence but there is no doubt it leads to a lowering of inhibitions and impairs judgment so much we are willing to take risks we wouldn’t ordinarily do – and in extreme cases that has led to death and destruction.
We have a very screwed up relationship with booze and its effect on police, the NHS, social housing and courts. Saturday night city centres full of drunken revellers brawling are a regular occurrence.
At the other end of the alcohol crime spectrum, women have been sexually assaulted when they are too intoxicated to fight off attackers, street fights have turned into murder and domestic abusers have often used the excuse they were drunk and not in control to explain their behaviour.
Gangs of teenagers gathering with carry outs in local parks and causing a menace for locals is nothing new either.
Shoulders are shrugged and we write it off as a rite of passage into adulthood. Getting p **** d on a Friday night is seen as a badge of honour among the young.
So, what do you do to encourage less drinking and anti-social behaviour among our young people and, as a result, less strain on already stretched and stressed police officers? Drunken disorder is a drain on valuable resources.
As a teenager in the 80s it wasn’t hard to get our hands on something to drink. Stealing a bottle of vodka from the family drinks cabinet and badgering adults outside the local corner shop to get us some cans was the norm.
The buyer would mutter, “You’re going to get me in trouble” before taking our pennies and furtively handing us the illicit goods anyway.
Attitudes have not changed and in 2022 we’re still having to launch campaigns to try to encourage adults not to buy alcohol for underage drinkers.
During a pilot scheme in North Lanarkshire before the It’ll Cost You campaign was rolled out nationwide, 38 adults were reported for buying alcohol for children and two shops caught selling to under-18s.
The campaign aims to educate people about the issues that can arise from underage drinking.
We can’t continue to look down our noses at our young people, tut and shake our heads at their behaviour while also encouraging the same by indulging in their pleas for some cider and/ or a half bottle of vodka.
Turning a blind eye to the damage underage drinking does in the long term and writing it off as an experience everyone goes through is no longer acceptable.
Encouraging our young to smoke is seen as taboo but I don’t know why we don’t adopt the same attitude to drinking.
If that doesn’t stop and cause you to think then maybe a £5000 fine and three months in the jail will.
That’s the penalty if you’re caught buying drink for a 14-year-old in the local park.