On average, one person in Scotland dies every three hours and 40 minutes as the direct result of alcohol abuse and the figure is rising rapidly. Add in alcohol-related deaths from cancer, suicide, crime and accidents, and the human cost is considerably higher. The most sobering aspect of the figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday is the size of the gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK. For more than a decade, alcohol-related deaths among women in Scotland have been worse than for men in England. Of the 20 council areas with the highest male mortality rates from alcohol, 15 are in Scotland. The equivalent figure for female deaths is 14.

On average, one person in Scotland dies every three hours and 40 minutes as the direct result of alcohol abuse and the figure is rising rapidly. Add in alcohol-related deaths from cancer, suicide, crime and accidents, and the human cost is considerably higher. The most sobering aspect of the figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday is the size of the gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK. For more than a decade, alcohol-related deaths among women in Scotland have been worse than for men in England. Of the 20 council areas with the highest male mortality rates from alcohol, 15 are in Scotland. The equivalent figure for female deaths is 14.

If 45 Scots were dying every week in plane crashes, the issue would be at the very top of the political agenda. Yet the response from the Scottish Executive illustrates graphically how powerless and ineffectual it appears to be to stem the tide of alcohol-related harm that is engulfing this country. Having chosen yesterday to update the 2002 so-called Action Plan on Alcohol, the best it could offer was a clampdown on the sale of alcohol to children. Scotland's chief medical officer, Dr Harry Burns, confronted with a six-fold increase in cirrhosis mortality in 50 years, ventured the opinion that death rates "might have been worse" without the executive's strategy.

With £3.3bn in alcohol exports and 155,000 employed directly or indirectly in the industry (6% of the workforce), Scotland is in a bind over alcohol. A cosy relationship with the drinks industry has resulted in policies that rely on the toothless self-regulation of pubs and off-sales and the questionable notion that extending licensing hours will magically turn Scots into civilised, continental-style drinkers. Recent statistics on alcohol-related hospital admissions and surveys of the drinking habits of young people reveal how disastrously this approach has failed. Today's teenage binge drinkers are tomorrow's cancer and cirrhosis patients. Few doubt that yesterday's shocking mortality figures are set to get much worse. A large part of the problem is that binge drinking has become culturally embedded, with the girls staggering around our city centres on Saturday nights, merely copying their parents' binge drinking. And, although those from the most deprived areas are most at risk, there is also concern about middle-class households where two large gins and a bottle of wine are on the menu every night.

The elephant in the room is price. Booze has rarely been cheaper since Hogarth brought us Gin Lane. The Treasury, heavily lobbied by the drinks industry and fearful that raising duties will stimulate the south-coast booze cruise culture, is too coy about using price to address the issue. Something needs to be done when supermarkets irresponsibly sell beer and cider more cheaply than water and use alcohol as a loss leader to increase the footfall in their stores; when pubs charge as much for soft drinks as alcoholic ones. It is time to recognise that self-regulation has failed. Two areas where the Scottish Parliament could intervene would be to teach primary school children from age five onwards about the damage caused by alcohol and raise the age at which alcohol can be purchased. If Scotland's booze culture is to be challenged, the time for half measures is past.