Scourge of alcohol abuse

BINGE drinking has been blamed for a surge in the number of women arrested for violence. The number of women identified by police as being involved in assault incidents grew from 13,373 in 2002-03 to 14,806 in 2006-07, figures from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show. There was a 2.3 per cent growth in the 10 to 17 age bracket, and of 2.6 per cent among women aged over 18. The emergency director of St Vincent’s Hospital, Gordian Fulde, has no doubt a rise in binge drinking is behind the growing number of females committing assault. He described the massive increase in the representation of drunk young women to his department over the past few years as “scary”.

“Have I seen an upward trend in the number of women involved in assaults? Yes: a) in number, b) in severity. Dr Fulde said binge drinking was also causing young women to be more sexually permissive. “That sets up for a whole lot of problems.” Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last year showed one in eight adults, or about 2 million people, drank at a risky level in the week surveyed. But the increase in those drinking at a risky level in the 10 years since 1995 was greater for women than for men. Source.

MK - Apart from the effects of this growing alcohol abuse, who pays for all this? You know when the abusers and their victims end up in the emergency rooms of hospitals around the country, what about the costs of ill health due to years and years of alcohol abuse, who pays for that, that’s right, you and I. Anyone can go out there and drink till they drop, and they do, no worries, because someone else will pick up the tab, perhaps when these morons turn up at the emergency room, send them a nice fat bill when they’re ready to go home. That ought to smarten a few of them up, not to mention it’ll be a warning of things to come if they persist in their self-destructive behavior.