Sex, Cigarettes, Drink and Rock 'n' Roll

Young People ignore anti-binge drinking campaigns, apparently. Quite rightly so when you watch the advert above that the Home Office put out recently, as part of a £4 Million campaign to cut down on drinking. (See BBC Source)

"A study by Birmingham and Bath universities suggests the government must stop "demonising" young people in its attempts to promote safe drinking."

Quite rightly so. It seems to me that the P.C. brigade are shifting from tobacco to alcohol.
"Professor Isabelle Szmigin, who assisted the study, told the BBC: "For young people, drinking is very much a part of their social life but we feel that a lot of the government literature tends to present a picture of it being an individual responsibility rather than a social one.

"Young people do engage with the idea of responsible drinking but far more from the social side. They ensure there are designated drivers; people looking out for each other and that their friends are safe."

Ms Szmigin said shock tactic adverts did not always work and had risk of alienating the very people they were meant to target.

She said future government policies on alcohol-related harm needed to tackle cheap prices, how drinks were marketed but without being "heavy-handed" and recognising the role of alcohol as a "social glue"."

There are two things here I want to mention and comment on - the idea of alcohol as a 'social glue' and the comment on shock tactics.

Consider the recent smoking legislation - banned in most public places in the UK in 2007 and now there are some rather vile pictures on cigarette packets, like these:

Now, I'm sure if I could find the latest, (though the BBC search engine is rather crap) that the numbers of smokers (In Scotland at least) is as bad as it was 10 years ago, and it would appear that the anti-smoking legislation hasn't helped either.

I'd argue that the Swinging Sixties generation, (a decade known for its 'free love', drug taking, sex and liberal lifetstyles) and all the medical findings of recent times into the effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco have led to this PC brigade and campaign against booze and cigarettes and sex. Some of our best loved, most famous people have fell ill to various related illnesses (George Best to alcohol, Freddie Mercury to AIDs, Warren Zevon of REM after a history of smoking).

But I think it is time, like Smzigin says, to stop demonising young people. Do we really want a straight-edge society? It's all well and good for the government to educate people into the dangers of smoking, drinking, etc. We can't be expected to just 'know' the dangers. But it is wrong to be shamed for lifestyle choices that do not correspond to the masses.

I'm a drinker, and a smoker. And in both cases I've made friends and had many good times through social smoking of cigarettes and going out to the clubs. Sometimes, yes, I've made an arse out of myself and some of these tales are legendary and still spoken of, years after the event. But that's part of the fun. I never committed any crime (other than the obvious there), just made an idiot out of myself. Making people grow up feeling they can't experience the same fun I have had or anybody older than me (I'm looking at the likes of Professor Smzigin, I'm sure she got pissed once in her young days at university), is not the way to go. We'd be making our children of this generation not really knowing how to have fun, scaring them so much that before we know it, kids won't be going out and getting themselves into trouble and learning better from the experience.

It's like hypocondria gone mad. If we molly-coddeled our babies, made sure they were always well so they never contracted an illness as small as chickenpox, we'd never have a good enough immune system in our later years to fight infection.

By the same token, not allowing people to make their own choices, not letting them embarass themselves in public to create social tales that last a lifetime and to learn from the experience - we would lose our ability to interact with each other and socialise. People need this outlet, not to live in a society of moral panic causing everyone to stay at home and play World of Warcraft instead.

By all means, teach us the dangers of life. Not patronize us and make us feel criminal for a life choice that we can choose to act out responsibly. Sex, Drugs, Drink, Alcohol, all can be experienced in life to an effect that is responsible. Don't try and take things away from us just because the media sensationalises everything. There is a place for legislation and a place for education. That is the goal:

Ensuring Responsibility, not inducing fear.