Binge Drinking Essay Example for Free

Binge Drinking Essay Currently, binge drinking has become a crucial issue in the UK, it causes many problems such as car accidents, underage drinking, health. Drinking alcohol is an acceptable activity in a positive way such as people celebrate their holiday or family day. However, it is not recommended binge drinking that means drink beverages over 8 units for men or 6 units for women regularly. (The Drinkaware Trust, 2012) Therefore, government tries to reduce the harm of alcohol by introducing minimum price of 40p per unit. ( BBC News, 2012) I suggest that the minimum price for alcohol is needed to be implemented because it can save lives, improve public health and stop drinking in long-term. This essay will discuss that the reasons why people binge drinking, the consequences of alcohol abuse and the pricing policy of the government. [Drinking is quite normal behaviour in the UK. For example, people usually work on weekdays, which they need to have leisure time to relax or go out with their friends, they might drink during this period. On the other hand, some people drink too much alcohol when they spend time in club or city centre. And another issue with drinking alcohol is that there are too many hazardous drinkers among the young generation in the UK. According to Mistral 2009, younger people has a high percentage increase in alcohol-related death at 57%. Furthermore, they drink more beverages than older people. (Mistral, 2009) There are many researchers suggest that binge drinking can be reduce by the pricing policy for alcohol. (Mistral, 2009) There are several causes of binge drinking. Firstly, most people spend their weekend in a pub or city centre with friends because they do not want to become a unsocial people, which means some of them went to the pub because peer pressure not volunteer, especially among young people. As Szmigin et al. (2007) suggest that they would like build friendship through drinking alcohol. Then another reason that cause people excess drinking is drinking culture and history. It has become an essential part of Britons drinking habit since Vikings period. Traditional drinking behaviour is not the only reason that cause people to drink. Thirdly reason is that the majority of heavy drinkers want to find the self confidence and depression. (Institute of Alcohol Studies, 2010) For instance, students face hard work in school, people who live in a terrible life condition or they want to reduce tension. Moreover, the supermarket always provides great price to drinkers such as buy one get one free by using advertisement, which is beneficial for moderate drinkers but not hazardous drinkers. Therefore, some people buy beverages because they are attracted by the low price. Turning to the consequence of heavy drinking, it causes many problems including physical and mental health problem. According to The Salvation Army 2000, there are two different types of physical including long and short-term risk of binge drinking. Keep abusing alcohol regularly for a long time can lead to brain damage, cancers or infertility. In comparison, drinking enormous beverages in a short period might cause car accidents and violence. In addition, short-term effect of alcohol often involves some violence, crime and road traffic accidents amongst younger people. (Salvation Army, 2000) There are many young people and busy worker likely to spend their pubs or club which create excess violence at midnight. Therefore, people are afraid to go to town centre at night. Follow this, there is a solution for this drinking issue that the UK government announced an alcohol price policy that is raising prices of 40p per unit in March, 2012. There are different argument from the cross-party group. They argue that minimum price for alcohol not really solve drinking problem because pricing policy just for the short-term influence not for the long-term phenomenon of binge drinking. (Triggle, 2012) Furthermore, it seems that this strategy quite unfair to the responsible drinkers who just want to have fun or relax in the local pub. (Woodhouse, 2012) On the other hand, Prime Minister estimate that this alcohol pricing strategy can lower hospital admissions because hazardous drinkers will stop to get drunk to get drunk at night and also reduce the affordability of young people, which will save lives and improving public health.( BBC News, 2012) Prime Minister David Cameron claims that there were one million violent crimes and 1.2 million hospital admissions associated with alcohol last year. Following this, he says that this pricing policy can reduce harmful levels of alcohol and the cost of hospitalization. (BBC News, 2012) Many researchers suggest that the raising price of alcohol can lower the consumption of wine, beer and spirits. In addition, there is a research shows that younger drinker, excess drinker and harmful drinker are likely to buy cheap alcohol item. (Mistral, 2009) Therefore, minimum price for alcohol is the best model in order to solving binge drinking issue in England. in conclusion, many reasons caused binge drinking such as peer pressure, self doubt. In particularly, this is general phenomenon among young people. There are wide range evidence show that problem such as health, economic and young generation associated with alcohol misuse. Many researchers have focused on the relative between the pricing and the consumption of alcohol. (Mistral, 2009) There are many authors show that minimum price can reduce the consumption of wine, beer and spirit in all age, especially among younger drinkers and excess drinkers who likely choose low price alcohol product. Therefore, this study has clearly illustrated the minimum price should be implemented.