Seeing that there are no comments here I would just like to say that all sentences I say for the rest of the day will end with "may or may not have involved a dead goat". Thanks for that laugh.

Drinking is part of our culture, both the positive and negative aspects of it. I suppose the goal should be to promote responsible drinking. I would also welcome a reality check on how alcohol studies are performed, with the categorization of binge drinking is unrealistically low. I think we all know what binge drinking is, and it not necessarily "Drinking too much on a single occasion of drinking" which is defined as more than 4 standard drinks. We also need to separate the difference between young people getting drunk and partying, and problem drinking. Once we focus on the real problems, it will be easier to identify solutions that actually work.

When someone invents a non-alcoholic drink as good & as cheap as beer then I suppose I would stop drinking. Perhaps if Government wants me to be a better person they could stop fleecing me so much & discriminate less against me. Stop shoving discrimination down my throat every moment of the day.

' how alcohol studies are performed, with the categorization of binge drinking is unrealistically low.'

Bah. Par for the course in everything. Expand the definitions = Get more funding, or more publicity for your pet area of interest so you can be an authority on a supposedly more prevalent or dire social problem, and get on Q and A some day.

It's the way of EVERYTHING.
You MUST have a 1 in 3, 1 in 2 type statistic to bandy about, even if the categorization is as rubbery as a Treasury forecast.

See, people are lazy, they don't dig deeper to find out that say, 'sexual assault', a phrase now deliberately conflated with 'rape', includes people leering at each other.

Or that in 'domestic *violence*', the definition of violence invariably includes metaphorical violence, even things like being a tight ass about money in a relationship.

So a 'Binge Drinker' will naturally follow the same lines.

How are you supposed to get funding by saying a binge drinker is someone who cant remember the night before or someone who vomits.

A binge is redefined as slightly exceeding the recommended daily allowance.

For a country where the first currency for 20 years was rum, where we boast more words for vomiting after excessive drinking than any other country in the world, i.e:

"I've had liquid laughs in bars, hurled from passing cars, and chundered in the wide Pacific sea", together with
"the big spit" technicolour yawn" and so on,

it would be fair to say that since first fleet days alcohol has been a central part of our culture. I don't remember the details, but in the 1920's the wowsers put on a referendum in NSW for banning alcohol which was defeated by the greatest margin of any referendum.

Surely the problem is not drinking as such, it is drinking in public places, as if you get pissed at home you can't do much damage. Again the public traitors who suggest that things can be fixed by increasing the tax on alcohol ignore countries such as Spain and Italy where the tax is very low and binge drinking is not a problem. They also ignore the popular maxim:

"No taxation with or without representation"

What is therefore needed is restriction of opening hours to a time after which I have gone home.

Those who would defend the current Aussie consumption of alcohol should spend a day or two sitting in a court of petty sessions and see the disastrous effects that it is having in the community. I have observed that in nearly all the cases of family violence, excessive alcohol consumption is the cause.

In addition to that, one only has to go to all the popular night spots in our cities to see the assaults and other appalling behaviour of the drunks, both male and female.

Finally, look at the way alcohol is connected with every sporting venue, regardless of the age of the participants, and you will see what a slippery slope we are on.

Moderation indeed. I think not.

David