No more HAPPY HOURS

British MPs call for banning happy hours at pubs and bars as well as selling alcohol in lower prices. Happy hours involve selling low-priced alcohol usually between 5-7pm. The unlimited consumption of alcoholic drinks people drive people to binge-drinking and thus, alcohol fuels violence.

Police are complaining they are being distracted by the number of incidents happening due to over booze that are taking them from other serious crimes.

Around 150 drinkers packed Redback Tavern pub in Acton on Sunday between 5-7pm due to its £10 "all you can drink offer".

Chairman of Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz said in his report: "We cannot have, on one hand, a world of alcohol promotions for profit that fuels surges of crime and disorder and, on the other, the police diverting all their resources to cope with it." According to the committee, alcohol related crimes cost the country £7.3billion a year.

An NHS research showed that alcohol is 65 per cent more affordable in 2006 than it was in 1980. Experts encourage banning advertising for alcohol as an attempt to reduce binge-drinking. The University of California calls for a similar control for alcohol like that is for tobacco. There are about 22,000 premature deaths every year in Britain related to alcohol. Binge-drinking cost Britain £25billion a year.

Facts and figures from different sources in the UK:
• A report by the Ministry of Justice shows that 87,200 women and girls were arrested for violence last year, compared with 42,200 in 2003. This is equivalent to 240 violent attacks by women every day. It comes amid concerns that binge-drinking is fuelling a rise in assaults by women.
• Legal drinking age is 18 if in public. Over five if in private. Calls to raise it to 21.
• The official figures released this week say that 13 teenagers are admitted to hospital every day due to binge drinking.
• The most recent figures show that 4,647 under-18s needed treatment in hospital for complaints related to binge drinking in the year from 2003-2004. This is a rise of 11 per cent in the last 8 years.
• Fifth of children aged 11 to 15 drinking at least once a week.
• UK's young people are among the heaviest drinkers in Europe, according to a recent survey of 15-16 year olds all across the continent.
• In the UK, the total number of teenage girls binge drinking is higher than the number of boys. 32% of girls and 25% of boys aged 15-16 said they had been on a drinking binge (once or more) during the last month. (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Drugs Nov. 2004).