Sticking Plasters for Piss Artists

The epidemic, if you will, that is alcoholism is indeed rife in our country. That is not for debate, the binge drinking culture is a problem.

However, I don't believe that minimum alcohol pricing is the way forward, I think this is a much wider problem than that. And as such, it can't be solved with a sticking plaster policy. The Labour government, and indeed the SNP administration in Hollyrood, are big fans of sticking plasters. They like to try to solve problems quickly by playing the numbers game, as seems to happen all across the board these days, whether it be in policing, schools, or health in this instance.

People, the adminstrations believe, want to see the effects of policies right now. We do, we want to see less drunk people on the streets, less people being ill, clogging up the health service, by smoking, or in this case, drinking. Of course we want that, but we understand, or at least we should understand that these things take time. All of the big issues surrounding our health, teenage pregnancy, alcohol, drugs, smoking, need to be dealt with, but not by quick fixes, the only way these things are going to be solved is with the correct education and now is the time to start educating the next generation properly about these things, don't expect a quick fix to solve it, it might show a quick trough in figures, but it won't ultimately solve the problem.

Educating the next generation of our country to not be piss artists, or not be piss artists too often, is the only realistic way this can be solved. Things do need to be down now, but I don't believe making it more expensive is really going to change much, or indeed anything.

The governments need to be bold and not just think about tomorrow's poll ratings and stick to their guns and try to solve these issues in the long term, not just for right now and no amount of raising the age for buying alcohol from an off license to 21, or charging more for beer is going to change that.

We need to plan for the future, not try and cover up the problems we have already caused.

L