As a graduate of the University of Sheffield, I thought it incredibly apt that my alma mater led the research into minimum drink pricing as a means of, in effect, lowering the amount of booze that passes our parched lips each week.
While by the third year of my degree I only used to hit the sauce around once a week, in my first year, still hopped up on the excitement of being away from home and the pleasant incestuousness of dormitory living, 4 or 5 nights out a week was not unusual.
Monday night was the real killer. Across the city venues that, without the presence of tens of thousands of thirsty students, would otherwise be empty would offer deals the likes of which would never be found inside the M25.
The three main nightclubs in the city would sell vodka and mixer for 60-80p, while bottles of lager were often less than a quid. I once bought a round of drinks for myself and five friends. It cost me £3.
Like countless numbers of my peers, I happily chucked plastic glasses of industrial cleaning fluid masquerading as spirits down my throats on a weekly basis, and got royally leathered in the process. Often in some kind of fancy dress and/or drag.
While this is primarily the experience of the student population, who are still young and spunky enough to knocking back a skinful, eat a kebab, roll in at 3am and still get up before noon and make it to lectures, all the fond memories of those hazy, alcohol-fuelled days cannot hide the fact that keeping drink cheap does encourage you to consume more of it, irrespective of your age or level of education.
The news today carried the story of a fresher at UCL who collapsed and died while out partying, and subsequently an 'all-you-can-drink' event was cancelled. Most students, even with the obvious temptation of the kind of promotion which most of them would see as a kind of challenge, would hit their limit and not come close to consuming so much as to put themselves in serious harm. However, a small minority are capable of physical consuming so much hooch as to risk a trip to A&E and it is for exactly these people that legislation must exist.
Weatherspoon's pubs - friends of the student and the pensioner alike - offer cheaper drinks than just about anywhere else. Consequently they are the most ubiqutious presence on the high street from Land's End to John O'Groats (whether either of these two place actually have a 'Spoons, I know not).
Not that this particular chain is any better or any worse than all the others. But they, like all licenced premises, must accept the responsibility that comes with selling alcohol. The fact that this is not enshrined in our laws is something which must be corrected.
It seems obvious to me that hiking the price of drink would have an impact on the level of booze consumed, but this is by no means a cure-all for one of the most widespread social ills in our country. It can only be effective as part of a concerted effort to lessen the harmful effects of alcohol consumption.
I lived my university days neither any more or any less responsibly that most students, and often found myself staring down the business end of an essay deadline with a sore head and a queasy stomach. I don't feel that I should have altered my social agenda in any way, shape or form.
But in since graduation I have come to understand that the sheer reckless abandon of the student lifestyle - when it is all too easy to get carried away on a night out - means that something has to change in the way that alcohol sales in this country are regulated in order that students, like the rest of society, can make more responsible choices about their intake of the demon drink.
While by the third year of my degree I only used to hit the sauce around once a week, in my first year, still hopped up on the excitement of being away from home and the pleasant incestuousness of dormitory living, 4 or 5 nights out a week was not unusual.
Monday night was the real killer. Across the city venues that, without the presence of tens of thousands of thirsty students, would otherwise be empty would offer deals the likes of which would never be found inside the M25.
The three main nightclubs in the city would sell vodka and mixer for 60-80p, while bottles of lager were often less than a quid. I once bought a round of drinks for myself and five friends. It cost me £3.
Like countless numbers of my peers, I happily chucked plastic glasses of industrial cleaning fluid masquerading as spirits down my throats on a weekly basis, and got royally leathered in the process. Often in some kind of fancy dress and/or drag.
While this is primarily the experience of the student population, who are still young and spunky enough to knocking back a skinful, eat a kebab, roll in at 3am and still get up before noon and make it to lectures, all the fond memories of those hazy, alcohol-fuelled days cannot hide the fact that keeping drink cheap does encourage you to consume more of it, irrespective of your age or level of education.
The news today carried the story of a fresher at UCL who collapsed and died while out partying, and subsequently an 'all-you-can-drink' event was cancelled. Most students, even with the obvious temptation of the kind of promotion which most of them would see as a kind of challenge, would hit their limit and not come close to consuming so much as to put themselves in serious harm. However, a small minority are capable of physical consuming so much hooch as to risk a trip to A&E and it is for exactly these people that legislation must exist.
Weatherspoon's pubs - friends of the student and the pensioner alike - offer cheaper drinks than just about anywhere else. Consequently they are the most ubiqutious presence on the high street from Land's End to John O'Groats (whether either of these two place actually have a 'Spoons, I know not).
Not that this particular chain is any better or any worse than all the others. But they, like all licenced premises, must accept the responsibility that comes with selling alcohol. The fact that this is not enshrined in our laws is something which must be corrected.
It seems obvious to me that hiking the price of drink would have an impact on the level of booze consumed, but this is by no means a cure-all for one of the most widespread social ills in our country. It can only be effective as part of a concerted effort to lessen the harmful effects of alcohol consumption.
I lived my university days neither any more or any less responsibly that most students, and often found myself staring down the business end of an essay deadline with a sore head and a queasy stomach. I don't feel that I should have altered my social agenda in any way, shape or form.
But in since graduation I have come to understand that the sheer reckless abandon of the student lifestyle - when it is all too easy to get carried away on a night out - means that something has to change in the way that alcohol sales in this country are regulated in order that students, like the rest of society, can make more responsible choices about their intake of the demon drink.
