Binge Drinking

There's been a lot more media coverage of this issue lately, as well as feelers put out by Government for their piecemeal, inconsequential suggested measures designed to be seen to be doing something without actually doing something. But first, what is it that's wrong and what is it that we want instead?

Well, I suggest we all want to be able to get merrily drunk, have a night out, totter home and remember the night out with fondness. We also want to be able to cook with a bottle of wine, maybe have a few beers with the barbecue should summer ever arrive. Or maybe a single malt with our supper. Basically, we want a situation where grown ups can have a drink and enjoy it without being caught up in fights, sick, abuse, outbursts and injuries. What we don't want is po-faced health fanatics turning drinking into the same pariah state as smoking.

I suggest the answer lies mostly in existing legislation: it is an offence to sell alcohol to a person who is drunk, as is being drunk and disorderly, as is selling alcohol to under 18s, as is urinating in public. The question really has to be why aren't these powers being used? I noticed in Melbourne that the police there have a "booze bus" - a double decker bus converted inside into multiple police cells. Disorderly drunks can then spend a night in the cells sleeping it off without police vans carting them from one end of town to the other. Pubs and clubs that produce the trouble makers should be warned then fined if they continue serving drunks. Those gents who piss in shop doorways could also spend a night on the booze bus. The only hurdle is having enough police on duty to enforce the current laws. A few months of pressuring licensees and punters to be reasonable would have a great effect. More so than more, interminable, ineffectual "education".