| What Are They Thinking? | |
|
Each day here at the About Alcoholism web site, we search hundreds of sources across the globe via the Internet to find the latest news concerning alcohol and recovery related issues, to keep our newsletter and regular visitors informed of the most up-to-date information.
In the process of gathering articles for our daily news page, we sometimes run across stories that make us scratch our heads and say, "What are these people thinking?"
Here are a couple of examples:
It seems in Belgium they are having a problem with children getting too many cavities because of the sugar-laden beverages and soft drinks the kids were drinking with their school lunches. So someone came up with an idea to solve the problem -- serve them beer instead!
A "beer club" approached about 30 schools in Belgium and suggested that they substitute small bottles of 2.5 percent alcohol content lager for the fizzy soft drinks at school lunches, because they contain less sugar.
Kids Preferred the Beer!
Almost 80 percent of children who took part in the pilot scheme in Belgium's Limburg province said they preferred beer over soft drinks, and more schools are expected to follow suit when the new school year begins in September, according to press reports.De Limburgse Biervrienden, the beer club behind the plan, claims soft drinks and fruit juice can increase the risk of obesity and even cancer in children, and drinking the low-alcohol beer is much healthier.
The club's chairman, Rony Langenaeken, dismissed the idea that pupils may become too intoxicated to concentrate on their studies. "You'd have to drink five or six litres of the stuff to get drunk and these will just be 25cl or 33cl bottles. I used to drink it when I was just six years old and I still do every day."
There's a ringing endorsement!
In Belgium, drinking ale is almost a national past time, and there are those who believe countries like the United States that have a legal drinking age of 21 add to the problems associated with youth drinking by making it "taboo." They believe allowing kids to drink will somehow teach them to drink "responsibly" instead of it being a rebellious reaction.
When we published a recent article explaining the danger of lowering the drinking age, we received a lot of hate mail from these folks, who called us everything from fascists to "brainwashed ***holes." Oh well.
Drinking Clubs for Alcoholics
Another story that crossed our screen recently told how one London Council planned to deal with the problem of a growing number of alcoholics drinking on the streets of the city, where they are becoming a nuisance. Taxpayers are complaining about the problem and want something done about it.Their solution? They plan to bring them in off the streets and provide them with cheap beer! Yep, the Camden Council is planning to set up a series of "wet centres" where street drinkers will be able to help themselves to alcohol provided at a discount price by brewers.
The council plans to set up shop in former pubs, and getting sponsorship from breweries to sell discounted extra-strong beers and lagers preferred by street drinkers. They believe street drinkers congregate together, not because they are homeless, but because they cannot afford pub prices and don't want to drink alone.
The chairman of the council's social services committee Julian Fulbrook defended the plan to the press by saying, "A lot of our council tax payers are not particularly happy about street drinkers. If they come inside, we can provide them with some medical attention, housing and benefits advice and, if they want to take advantage of it, we can set them on the road to alcohol recovery."
Needless to say, the plan has brought a loud protest from those involved in treating alcoholics and from the cynical British press.
Previous Features
