Fielding : 1 In 2 Australians Afraid To Go Out At Night, Terrified Of Drunk Women Vomiting On Themselves
I had no idea the Blink Drinking culture in Australia was so completely out of hand. Senator Steve Fielding brings us up to date :
Australia has become a nation held to ransom by binge drinking with one in two Australians too frightened to go out on the streets at night.
Haven’t we all had enough of drunken yobbos taunting people walking by, of young women lying sprawled on the street with vomit down their party dresses and groups of grog-fuelled men wandering our streets looking for a fight? many Australians enjoy a drink responsibly for too many having a drink means getting blink drunk.
Our drinking to get drunk culture is destorying this country."
Police Say "Thank God" Youth Are Throwing Down Illegal Drugs Instead Of Alcohol
The day after the world's biggest Ecstasy bust goes down in Australia, this story appears with some fascinating insights on how police in one alcohol-soaked trouble spot regard the drug and its use by youth :
If it was not for the prevalence of ecstasy in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley, understaffed police say they would struggle to cope with the drunken violence.
"We're at the point where we're saying thank God 80 per cent of them are using an illegal drug rather than alcohol, even though in 10 years they'll be suffering manic depressive disorders," the officer said.
"But we just couldn't deal with that many people affected by alcohol."
Drug Arm national communications manager Josie Loth said it was well known that illicit drugs such as ecstasy were much more prevalent in the Valley than other parts of Brisbane.
She said although ecstasy was a stimulant it tended to relax people but alcohol had the opposite effect. "When certain people drink . . . it brings out more of a violent tendency, often leading to problems," Ms Loth said.
Australian Medical Association Emergency Department spokeswoman Alex Markwell said alcohol definitely contributed to a lot more injuries than drugs.
"Young men especially can become aggressive on alcohol and get involved in fights and assaults," she said.
"If people didn't drink we wouldn't see anywhere near as many patients as we do."
It's not all good news on the E, however. As police and health officials point out, the long-term effects of Ecstasy are as damaging as binge-drinking :
"The big thing a lot of us feel is that one of the most dangerous and insidious things about 'e' (ecstasy) is that most young people think it's not hurting them but every time they use it, it's hurting them a little," the officer said.
"We deal with them all the time; these kids who are now 30 or 40 who are suffering serious mental health problems as a result of their drug use in their 20s. Often it ends in suicide."
It's so very, very rare that we hear police talking honestly about drug use in society. We need more of it.
All those cops, all that training, all that money, all that paperwork, and most of their time is spent trying to stop drunk people from smashing the shit out of each other. Alcohol-related violence is not a minority crime. It is the majority of all crimes today in Australia. We are an alcohol-soaked country, and we get hammered and abuse and beat each other into hospitals, or police cells, at rates that regularly rank high in world rankings.
A War On Alcohol, according to Sydney police, is overdue. But that's probably a bit too Taliban-esque for Australians.
"You can take our lives, but you will never take our Bundy & Cokes!"
Binge-drinking used to mean chugging half a large bottle of cheap scotch or burboun just before you stumbled into the party or nightclub, and then finishing yourself off with whatever was handy, and didn't have cigarette butts floating in it.
The Rudd government wants to reduce binge-drinking, so the 'Don't Do It!' ad campaigns begin.
The first ad tells us that if you have boozy barbecues with your mates in your suburban backyard and you tell your kid to go in and get dad a beer from the fridge, he'll grow up to have boozy backyard barbecues and will also tell his own kid to go and get dad a beer from the fridge. And so the terrible cycle of beer-fetching passes down through the generations.
At first I thought the message was that too much booze will make you too lazy to go and get your own frigging beer. Or that children who always do what their parents tell them will grow up to become bossy clones of their piss-addled dads.
And why is it that anti-booze and anti-drug ads always seem to be centred on rural or suburban Australians, living under grey skies or washed-out flourescent lighting?
Why no ads showing rich celebrities doing dunny lines of gak at an awards show? Or a politician downing eight martinis in a flash city restaurant before weaving back to parliament? Or the boss of a financial mega-corporation keeping the board waiting while he hides in his executive toilet and tries to empty a tall glass of vodka into his mouth with trembling hands?
You can do anti-drug ads without grimming the shit of the people you're trying to reach and hopefully teach something worthwhile. Here's one example :
Discouraging binge-drinking in Australia is a particularly tough mission, though something with the gloss, humour and style of the one above would be a good start.
A lot of people binge drink because they enjoy getting that utterly smashed and bombed, the faster the better. A far smaller number gulp down six or seven beers, for three or four hours, because they don't like themselves much and they find this kind of self-punishment satisfying. It's next to impossible to convince hard-core alcoholics to do anything they don't want to do, or anything much at all except drink.
But most Australians binge-drink because it feels good. So how do you stop those who enjoy it? Preach moderation? Or go the illegal drugs line and waste millions of dollars telling people who love ecstasy because it makes them feel absolutely awesome that they're really not having fun at all?
If it was my gig to do an ad to discourage people from drinking heavily, particularly now, I'd show someone coming home from the pub, falling against the table as they empty out their pockets, and wallet to discover they have no money left. Just a bit of silver shrapnel. Way overdue credit card and utilities bills on the table catch the eye. They go to make something quick to eat. Nothing to eat in the fridge, the cupboards are next to bare. The milk in the fridge is lumpy. The frustration and hunger is obvious.
They go for a piss. A stream of gold coins arc into the toilet bowl.
Then they puke.
A nearly endless stream of $20 and $50 notes geyser from the mouth, the toilet overflows with cash.
You might not get them to stop binge-drinking, but they'll have a hard time forgetting what they keep blowing all their money on.
