Focus on booze culture

8:57am Wednesday 14th May 2008

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THE scourge of problem drinking in Cumbria is the target of a far-reaching strategy which has been launched, reports Paul Duncan.

The Time to Call Time alcohol strategy has been drawn up by agencies such as Cumbria County Council and Cumbria Police in an attempt to tackle the damage being caused by alcohol misuse.

The document sets out the nature and scale of alcohol-related problems in Cumbria and features a number of statistics: l Thirty per cent of violent crime in Cumbria is linked to alcohol.

l Thirty-one per cent of children aged between 14 and 17 in Cumbria claim to have purchased alcohol in the last week.

l Alcohol-specific hospital admissions for under-18s in Cumbria are above the national average.

l There are some 9,000 children of problem alcohol users in Cumbria.

The strategy suggests various ways in which the issues can be tackled and sets out plans to promote safer, more sensible drinking by regulating the supply of alcohol, reducing demand and minimising the harm it can cause by offering help to people for whom drinking has become a problem.

Chair of the Cumbria Drug and Alcohol Action Team Jill Stannard said: "Many of us know people whose lives are affected by alcohol, either by being disturbed by rowdy behaviour, or having a friend or member of the family with an alcohol problem or liver disease.

"To date, we have failed to inform people of how much harm alcohol actually causes. Our relationship to alcohol has to change, so that we achieve a less harmful drinking culture. This strategy sets out why and how to change that relationship."