FRESH bids to tackle the horrors of teenage drinking were today applauded by the Fylde's under-the-cosh A&E doctors.
Drink-addled youngsters are a common sight in the casualty unit of Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
The issue has become a political football with all parties agreeing more needs to be done, from raising tax on booze to prosecuting those who sell it t
o minors.
But Nigel Kidner, consultant in The Vic's A&E department, is backing the train of thought that parents need to take greater responsibility in tackling binge drinking.
An editorial in the medical journal The Lancet said learning to enjoy alcohol without misusing it was "an important part of growing up" in many societies, but the lesson did not appear to be taught in the UK.
Mr Kidner said The Vic was seeing more and more younger people with alcohol-related problems such as liver disease and cirrhosis.
"As a society, we need to get on top of it. It's only going to get worse and we are storing up significant problems for the future. For a healthy younger generation, society's relationship with alcohol has to change.
"I would agree this includes in the home. Why wouldn't young people want to drink?
Glass"It's portrayed as fun. People go out to have fun and drink is involved. We have to change the attitudes and the culture.
"Years ago, drink-driving did not have the same stigma it has now and smoking in public places was seen as socially acceptable.
"So things can change. When I first started as a consultant in A&E, I used to spend a lot of my time picking glass out of people's foreheads after they went through windscreens because people didn't wear seat-belts, but that's changed.
"There's no reason why things can't change with alcohol."
According to hospital figures, between September 2007 and January this year, two under 17s were admitted every week, because of booze.
But Mr Kidner says many more teens may have ended up in hospital through alcohol, but if they had other complaints or injuries would not have been recorded on the system as "drunk".
He said: "We're seeing younger and younger people with cirrhosis and liver failure – people now in their 20s, when before you would think of people being in their 50s.
A Gazette expose last month found 27 units of units of alcohol could be bought in supermarkets for just over a fiver.
And one 14-year-old schoolboy from South Shore told our reporter most of his classmates drank a few times a week and spent about £5 on booze.
He said: "They mostly drink at the beach or at each other's houses. Sometimes the parents are there."
The Lancet has urged the Government to ban alcohol advertising and substantially raise taxes on booze.
But it said: "The biggest share, and burden, of the partnership must fall on parents who should take greater responsibility for teaching children about drinking safely."
The full article contains 507 words and appears in Blackpool Gazette newspaper.
