Meeting of the Parliament 04 June 2015
Mr Allard’s comments just prove what I am saying. When I look back—again, I will use my mother’s generation—I see that the alcohol consumption figures for males and females were not the same; the figures were much lower for females. The fact that women are now drinking at those levels means that more women are being brought into the risk category than in the past. Thinking generationally, I remember that in my family it was always the men who had alcohol problems, who had the tendency to abuse alcohol and who spent more on alcohol. If our society allows young women—indeed, young people in general—to think that just because they have money in their pockets and they are not alcoholics they can have these episodes of alcohol abuse, we need to think about the longer-term health risks and dangers associated with that.
I have spent more time on that matter than I had intended, because I also wanted to talk about some of the justice and antisocial behaviour issues associated with alcohol. Excessive alcohol consumption has a huge cost to our society. We need only look at the public disorder issues in many of our towns and cities at weekends, and the damage can be seen not only on the streets but in hospitals when people end up there and in the pressures that that puts on accident and emergency. We still need to address the issue of excessive consumption of alcohol in our towns and cities and the subsequent public disorder, because the situation is completely and utterly unacceptable. Each and every one of us has a responsibility in that respect; we should not just leave it for the police to deal with.
I wonder whether the cabinet secretary or the minister—whoever responds to the debate—can give us any information that they have on community payback orders. I know that in the past Richard Simpson and others have mentioned extending drug treatment and testing orders to alcohol, but it was suggested that that was not necessary because community payback orders would do the same job. How effective have they been? What are the statistics and how well are they working? Could we apply any issues regarding drug treatment and testing orders to alcohol?
We have a multifaceted problem, and it is not merely for our doctors, nurses or police officers. As Jackson Carlaw and others have said, it is a matter of education and we all have a role to play. Equally, we should not treat lightly the consequences not only of binge drinking but of continued and constant drinking, albeit within safe levels, as evidence shows that that can also do significant long-term damage.
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