Culture of drunkenness

Scotland has a long and problematic relationship with alcohol, but the most worrying aspect at present is the increasingly heavy drinking by young people. Teenage binge drinkers harm themselves, both by ending up as an emergency case as a result of an accident or getting into a fight, and in long-term damage to their health and their life chances. The weekend blight of drunken youths in towns and cities has prompted calls to raise the minimum age for buying alcohol from 18 to 21. It is a tempting solution to a difficult problem and the fact that raising the age is being considered by Shona Robison, the Minister for Public Health, indicates the depth of concern at Holyrood over underage drinking and alcohol abuse by young people legally entitled to drink. Eighteen has been the minimum age for so long that changing it would be a radical step. The immediate concern would be how to enforce it, since the number of under-18s drinking alcohol means the law is continually flouted.