Charity group says one in 20 Britons is an alcoholic

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- One in 20 Britons is an alcoholic and the government must step in urgently to stamp out the abuse, a charity said Wednesday.

Alcohol Concern said a conference of health workers and anti-alcohol campaigners meeting Wednesday would warn the government that twice as many people are hooked on drink as on drugs.

"One person in 20 is dependent on alcohol -- compared with one in 45 who are hooked on all other forms of legal and illegal drugs, including prescription drugs," a statement from Alcohol Concern said.

"It's about time ministers treated alcohol misuse with the seriousness it deserves -- not lip service.

"Every day there are headlines in newspapers highlighting the damage done by alcohol -- in terms of issues like crime, violence and drink driving... Frankly, the people on the front line dealing with these problems are fed up with the government's inaction," Alcohol Concern director Eric Appleby said in the statement.

Appleby wants the government to tackle alcohol abuse by launching a strategy that would coordinate action at the national and local levels.

The Health Department admitted that a long-promised alcohol strategy had been delayed but said the will to act was still there. "We remain committed to the strategy and aim to issue the document for consultation as soon as it is ready," a spokesman said.

Alcohol Concern said they defined alcohol dependency according to the toll it took on people's lives.

"If drinking to excess is leading to problems at home, at work and with health then we'd say someone has a drink problem," a spokeswoman said.

The charity said alcohol-related deaths registered by hospitals rose by about two thirds in the ten years to 1997.

It also said four in five people who check in to casualty during peak times were there with alcohol-related injuries.

Alcohol misuse was also denting British industry, which loses 2.8 billion pounds ($3.98 billion) every year because of employee hangovers or alcohol-related premature death.

The statement said Britain has seen a sharp rise in the number of woman and young people drinking too much -- 50 percent more woman were bingeing in 1998 then ten years earlier and 11-15-year-olds drink twice as much as they did in 1990.

The figures come a week after a survey by Company magazine found almost half of young women admitted "binge drinking" and some 40 percent said they had had sex with a stranger after drinking too much.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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