Ban booze for under-21s, says dad of girl who died from liver disease aged 24

Jim Thomson the dad of one of the youngest people in Britain to die from alcohol-related liver disease has called for a US-style ban on booze sales to anyone under 21.

His eldest daughter, Leigh, died from the condition aged just 24. She had been drinking excessively since 16, but it was only when she developed advanced liver failure at the age of 22 that her condition was picked up by doctors.

Jim, of Cambuslang, near Glasgow, Scotland, said: "It's worrisome for any parent to know their child was able to get such easy access to cheap alcohol at the age of 19. I think it's time we brought in laws like the USA have where you can't purchase alcohol until you are 21 years old.
 
"The government is happy enough to rake up the revenue and put 'drink responsibly' on the bottles, but how can you tell someone with an alcohol problem to drink responsibly?

Leigh was described as an intelligent and outgoing woman who volunteered with the British Red Cross and attended Felmington-Hallside Parish Church, However behind her positive front she had been secretly drinking three litres of cheap cider for the seven years leading up to her death.

Jim, whose wife Alice, Leigh's mother, died from alcohol-related problems in 2009 at the age of 42, said: "Leigh didn't come from a dysfunctional home. She was amazing, funny, articulate, and intelligent. She never got drunk in public. She was never falling about drunk. She would take a bottle of wine up to her room and not bother anyone. She'd get up in the morning, put her make-up on and she'd look immaculate. I took her to Alcoholics Anonymous and various meetings. It worked, but only for so long. She would be off the drink for three or four months and she would look brilliant. Then she would relapse."

Leigh's life slowly fell apart and she was unable to take up her place at college and lost her job as a carer. She gradually stopped seeing her friends and became increasingly isolated to the point where she was drinking at least two bottles of wine a day. She would get really ill, She would swell up and her skin would go yellow and her eyes would be bloodshot. She was really ashamed of her drinking.

He added that he never enabled or encouraged her drinking habits or gave her money, and because she was not on benefits he never knew how she was able to pay for the alcohol.
He said: "It is not a learnt behaviour. I am not a drinker. Alice was not a drinker until the last four years of her life. We didn't display that kind of behaviour. It may be part societal. If people don't go and drink and go to the pubs here, what else is there to do?"

Children as Young as 14 Caught Drink Driving

Hampshire’s road cops have a message to teenagers contemplating drink-driving - YOU will get caught

It comes as shock figures revealed that children as young as 14 (three years under the legal age for driving on public roads) are being caught drink-driving in the county.

Children’s charities say figures showing that in 2008, 2009, and 2011, drivers aged 14 were caught drink-driving are “terrifying”.


Hampshire is one of the drink-driving hotspots for under-18s in the country, with 276 offenders caught between 2008 and 2013 (74 were under the age of 16). The youngest offender in the country was just 11.


Hampshire Constabulary’s Sergeant Rob Heard said: “Interestingly the figures for 2012 and 2013 are significantly reduced by more than two thirds compared to the figure from 2008. This ongoing decline seems to demonstrate that our educational messages to young drivers are being heard clearly.
 
Jackie Ballard, chief executive at Alcohol Concern, said: “The fact young people have been illegally driving while under the influence of alcohol is terrifying. The Government has to get a grip on the fact that young people are bombarded with alcohol advertising which tells them drinking is a normal and positive thing to do and it is often available at pocket money prices. They can start to change this culture by introducing a minimum unit price and restricting alcohol advertising.”

Sarcastic ’Thanks alcohol’ Anti-Binge Drinking Ads

So ive come across these ads which are not in the UK but in Alberta USA.

One of the 4 posters depicts a young man who has vomited all over a woman’s dress, gives his friends the thumbs up and says ‘Thanks alcohol!”

The 4 posters are being distributed to bars and nightclubs across the province as the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGLC) launches a new advertising campaign aimed at highlighting the dangers of binge-drinking among youth.

The sarcastic advertisements were designed to capture the attention of drinkers between 18 and 24-years-old who may otherwise ignore having a conversation about binge-drinking,  the posters portray youth attempting to smile while in distressing situations such as recovering from a fistfight or laying awkwardly in bed with a stranger alongside the sarcastic tagline "Thanks Alcohol"

AGLC President and CEO Bill Robinson said “Nobody has seen this type of ad before. This is new.” he expects the campaign to be controversial.

Dr. Louis Francescutti, a University of Alberta Injury professor and emergency physician, who says he sees people suffering the ill effects of excessive alcohol at the hospital nightly, isn’t so sure this campaign will be enough.“Binge drinking has been around as long as humans have been around, and nobody has been able to solve the problem before, It’s unlikely that, unless we change our culture around drinking, we’re going to be able to change [binge drinking] as well.”

What do you think? Will it work? Would it work here in the UK?

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