Are you aware of alcohol?

If not, there's always alcohol awareness week.

MORE money is being spent on hospital admissions caused by alcohol than on cancer and heart disease in East Lancashire.

Actually there isn't. It's just the way those figures are massaged, but read on.

Health chiefs are aiming to highlight the dangerous affects alcohol can have on drinkers in East Lancashire during Alcohol Awareness Week.

They have revealed that around 800 people in Blackburn with Darwen are admitted to hospital each year for conditions almost entirely caused by alcohol,

800 people per year? There are 141,000 people living in Blackburn with Darwen. 800 people is a drop in the ocean. They're not even talking about deaths, just admissions.

while many other admissions are related to conditions at least partly caused by drinking.

This is where it should get good. If you can't make your case through the actual statistics, make something up.

In 2010 there were 4,500 admissions to hospital that were estimated to be related to alcohol use. This increased by 10 per cent from around 4,000 in 2009.

Estimated? Either they were due to alcohol use or they were not. I would say not, as 4500 is a huge jump from 800 with actual alcohol related illnesses.

Fall down the stairs and break your arm? Had a drink? It's alcohol related.

Activities planned across East Lancashire during Alcohol Awareness week include:
An online survey at www.surveymonkey.com/whatsthedamage to assess the impact of your drinking
Signposted treatment services, articles and education tools at www.Facebook.com/lancashirecare
A daily online debate at www.twitter.com/lancashirecare
Awareness events in schools, colleges and town centres posted daily on Facebook and Twitter

That sounds like it's going to cost a lot of taxpayers money. If we are going to waste all that cash, why not also wheel out a useful idiot to call for minimum alcohol pricing?

AN East Lancashire public health expert has called for a debate on alcohol pricing to improve the area’s health.
Dominic Harrison, Blackburn with Darwen’s director of public health, said “A number of local authorities in Greater Manchester and Merseyside have been working on a document that asks councils collectively to agree to consider a 50p minimum unit price.
"The way they are going to form it is to suggest the wording for a local by-law.

Is it really within their power to do that? It certainly isn't within their remit as elected servants of the public.

In East Lancashire nearly a quarter of the population of adults aged 16 and over drink more than the recom-mended amount of 21 units for men and 14 units for women per week.

Well when the recommended amounts are meaningless drivvel plucked out of the air, it doesn't really tell us anything if people choose to drink more than those limits. Alcohol affects different people in different ways. Most people could easily exceed the recommended limits continually, with no health problems.

It is estimated that a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, which would mainly affect cheap, low quality products, would save 3,000 lives a year in England.

Really. And how is that calculated? No, forget it, I tire of this now, you're just pulling stuff out of your arse.

And so what if it did save 3000 lives out of a country of 60 million people? How many poor people would a minimum price make even poorer? How many responsible drinkers would be hit in the pocket because of a desire to save 3000 hard drinkers who are well aware of the risks and will continue to find the money for booze no matter what the minimum price is?

Mr Harrison said: “I think the real driver in East Lancashire is drinking at home, cheap alcohol outlets and the discounting of alcohol by supermarkets which sell it at less than the price they buy it for.

Supermarkets do not sell alcohol at a loss. That is just an oft regurgitated myth such as 'cheaper than water' or 'pocket money prices'.

"It damages people’s health and local pubs that are actually an asset to communities.”

If people want to damage their health by drinking cheap booze at home, assuming they are actually doing that, then it is no business of yours or anyone else's.

Cheap supermarket booze is not damaging the pubs. Alcohol has always been cheaper in supermarkets because they are simply selling a product whereas the pubs are selling a night out.

It was the smoking ban that killed the pub trade. Targeting their main rivals with punitive regulations, making people pay more for the booze that they consume won't fix that.