New Puritans

O M Gosh. Is it me or are there an astonishing number of stories in our oh-so-clean media about the dangers of alcohol? I can hardly open a paper, switch on the radio or hit a news website without a constant stream of sometimes accurate/sometimes not, stuff leaking out about the horrors - alledged - of the pop. Given that hacks are dedicated boozers as a rule this is interesting.

What's more interesting is does this tell us anything about the current climate re: booze? I think it may do.

• Young people drinking too much = binge drinking. Middle classes drinking too much = dinner party. One's ok, the other isn't.
• Endless fears about pregnancy, parenthood and alcohol.
• More fears about the health/ASB impacts of alcohol.

And so on. And before I get it in the neck from my police chums - I've been to the bars where you drink and the institutional bingeing and in some cases expectation that everyone gets hammered after a shift is/are awesome.

My point is this. We can't take drugs, you can't smoke cigs, now it seems no one is allowed to drink. But as humans we seem programmed for the desire to experience altered states of consciousness, achieved in all sorts of ways be it religious ecstasy, spinning round as kids till we drop, drugs, whatever. And if the New Puritans force people away from drug #1 they'll switch to #2. Here's a lesson. In the 80's and 90's the drug Ecstasy was hugely popular - up to half a million doses taken each Saturday night. But those who took it fore swore alcohol. Ecstasy was judged to be more fun, less violence inducing (difficult to smack someone in the face when you're loved up) and an all-round improvement on booze. But the combination of crackdowns on Ecstasy-fuelled parties and the aggressive advertising and reductions in price of alcohol led people to ditch so much E and go back or on to booze. With the results we see on our streets and in our A+E depts every night. You reap what you sew. Yes there were a few sad E related deaths and injuries but they were/are as nothing compared to the damage caused by alcohol. So what will happen if the current anti-booze campaign continues? People will switch back to something else e.g. Ecstasy. So it goes.