From: Peter McCann, Chairman
Two articles both from this weeks Sunday Times came to my attention
One quotes some figures from the office of National Statistics revealing a sharp increase in the number of alcohol related deaths in the UK with 8,380 deaths reported in 2004 compared to 4,144 in 1991. The majority of these were due to chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, but accidental alcohol poisoning, heart attacks and mental and behaviour orders due to alcohol misuse where also responsible. So far so good or bad from whichever perspective you take it. A certain Professor Nutt, Professor of Psycho Pharmacology at Bristol University tells us that to solve this he has been researching ways of creating a drink made from a drug related to Valium - Yes Valium, can you believe it! Fortunately we get a bit sense from Katie Grant also in the Sunday Times but the Scottish edition. She lays into the Scottish Executives namely Lewis MacDonald, the Deputy Health Minister who reckons spending half a million pounds on a campaign telling drinkers to dodge their round of drinks when they are with their friends. Katie goes on to say that what those in power always fail to appreciate is that as a weapon of mass – behaviour change, government advertising does not work. They clutch at it, I suppose, because the advertisements they commission show the world they are doing something. She goes on that with alcohol abuse costing Scotland one billion pounds every year, she sympathises with this desire for action but just wonders if anybody has ever pointed that the definition of madness is when you carry on doing something that has already failed and some how expect this time you will get a different result. My quote “ sounds like alcoholic behaviour to me”.