New research from Britain’s leading experts on alcohol reveals that alcohol misuse will lead to up to 62, 905 deaths between the years of 2017 and 2022 – equating to around 35 deaths per day.
Research conducted by the Alcohol Research Group at Sheffield University claims that liver disease caused by excessive heavy drinking, will cost the NHS £16.74bn to treat Doctors and medical professionals are urging the government to increase the minimum unit pricing of alcohol in a bid to crackdown on the ‘public health crisis’ of liver disease deaths.
These figures are more than alarming, they’re incredibly worrying. Binge drinking is always, and will always be an issue, and in a culture that widely embraces heavy drinking for social occasions as a society we’re being pulled in so many different directions about if we should drink or not. Figures from the Office for National Statistics released back in May showed that drinking alcohol was at the lowest level it had ever been on record, with 56.9% of people ages 16 and over having had only one drink per week, and 21% of us not drinking at all. But the news that we’re still all guilty of drinking to excess if no surprise - we know it’s bad for us, yet the pressure to be a fun, young, millennial that goes to the pub on a Monday with the team, or spend our weekends hungover so when someone shares a meme about not being able to move from bed all day we click ‘like’ as an expression of ‘me too mate,’ is high.
Doctors are urging that the government introduce this minimum unit pricing, and campaigners believe that having a 50p minimum unit price on alcohol could result in 1, 150 fewer deaths over the five years. Calls from the SNP to introduce a 50p minimum price per alcohol unit have been challenged by the Scottish Whiskey Association – and the battle with be taken to the Supreme Court in the UK next Monday.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.