Demon drink: greatest public health issue of our age

Demon drink: greatest public health issue of our age: "In my opinion, Ireland is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Recent media reports stated more than 1,000 people have died in Ireland from alcohol-related illness in the past 12 months. We are a nation of addicts at the mercy of an ambivalent Government with a neo-liberal agenda which panders to the demands of a self-regulating drinks industry.
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Policymakers ignore the fact we have a serious problem with substance abuse which ultimately poses a greater threat to the economic and social fabric of Irish life than any bank crisis or property collapse ever could.
There are 2.48 million people in Ireland who drink alcohol and 54 per cent of those drink harmfully. There were no tax increases on alcohol in this year’s budget, even though pricing is widely identified as an effective means of reducing use. The Public Health Alcohol Bill, announced in October 2013, aims only at reducing consumption and falls short of addressing the social factors behind alcohol abuse."



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