A culture which encourages binge drinking

4:59pm Thursday 4th October 2007

Comments (0)   Have your say »

THERE has been a lot of publicity over the last few years about the issue of spiked' drinks. Obviously there is a threat and there are people who deliberately use drugs to try to gain influence over others who have no idea they have ingested extra narcotic substances.

We should not, however, get carried away about the size of the problem. For one thing, the appalling state of people out on a bender - from young people in town and city centres to the England cricket team after the Ashes victory - features regularly on television and the national newspapers.

Most of the people depicted have no-one but themselves to blame for their degeneration into an almost catatonic alcoholic stupor.

If we are to believe popular culture, young people go out of their way to get out of their face' at the weekend, believing that it is the only way to enjoy themselves properly.

If, in that condition, they then go on to behave in a humiliating manner and take part in activities bitterly regretted when sober, how convenient to claim that their drink was in some way interfered with, leaving them in a vulnerable position.

One might be tempted to ask: "Which one of the 25 Barcardi Breezers or 14 pints of lager you downed do you think was tempered with?"

It's a bit of a circular argument sometimes. A sober person should be able to tell if their drink has been spiked, in all probability it will taste and even look differently than it did before the tampering.

Someone pretty drunk would be likely not to notice the difference, but if someone is so drunk they cannot tell whether a drink has been spiked or not, is there really a need to spike their drink to encourage them to behave stupidly?

As long as we have a culture which encourages binge drinking, the problem of spiked drinks will probably exist alongside it and prove almost impossible to eradicate.