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Panorama: more teen drinkers ending up in hospital
The number of children being admitted to hospital with alcohol related conditions has risen by more than 20% in the last five years.
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According to NHS figures obtained by 91Èȱ¬ One's Panorama, 20 youngsters a day are being diagnosed with conditions such as alcohol poisoning and behavioural disorders due to excessive drinking.
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Medical professionals want the Government to do more and feel the Government's harm reduction strategy is not working.
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Professor Ian Gilmore, President, Royal College of Physicians, says: "I think the fact that we're seeing things getting worse, rather than better, two years after a harm reduction strategy, means we need to revisit this very urgently, and what we cannot afford to do is wait the 40 years that it took with smoking.
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"We know that the tobacco industry was incredibly powerful; it took a long time to get the health messages home.
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"We cannot afford that same long timescale with alcohol."
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The North West Ambulance Service alone is seeing more than 10 under-18s every week being admitted to hospital because of alcohol abuse.
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Panorama features an ambulance team in Liverpool. They say they have seen a rise in the number of underage drinkers they are picking up.
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Ian Forster, of the North West Ambulance Service, says: "It's not unusual for a child to have drank a litre of vodka - that would have me on my back for three or four weeks.
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"Resources are quite sparse anyway so to be dragged from pillar to post all over the city for underage drinking, which is avoidable, is keeping us from the patients that we're trained to treat."
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In the last five years the number of under-18s being admitted to hospital with alcohol related conditions has risen from 6,288 in 2000/1 to 7,579 in 2004/5 -an increase of 21%.
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These include alcohol poisoning and behavioural disorders due to alcohol according to the NHS Information Centre.
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As well as an increase in hospital admissions now, experts warn that binge drinking teenagers may be storing up trouble for the future.
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By studying the behavior of adolescent rats, Professor Aaron White, from Duke University in the USA, has found that excessive alcohol at a young age can actually cause long term damage.
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He says: "The research we have so far strongly suggests that adolescents who get drunk on a regular basis in particular run the risk of damaging their brains."
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But that does not seem to bother Lydia. She drinks at least two litres of cider a couple of nights a week and has no intention to give up drinking.
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She says: "I'm not gonna stop drinking. Cos that's just boring. I don't think I'd be able to do it either... it's a ritual innit? It's part of teenage culture, is to drink and get drunk."
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Professor Gilmore believes that if alcohol was made more expensive it would cut down the number of under-age drinkers.
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He says: "We at the Royal College of Physicians have been calling for the price of alcohol in real terms to go back towards where it was about 20 years ago.
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"The Government does not want to be accused of being in the nanny state, but I think we're in a situation at the moment of where nanny knows best, and if we don't do something, we're going to regret it in a few years time."
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But Lydia does not want the price to go up: "I wouldn't be very happy. There would be a lot less children drinking it. If you think about it a bottle cider is the same amount as a bottle of coke.
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"What's the point of buying a bottle of coke when you can buy alcohol, quench your thirst and have fun at the same time? It's twisted."
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As more young people end up in hospital wards due to alcohol it is the NHS that will have to foot the bill.
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Alcohol abuse already costs the health service £1.7bn a year.
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Panorama: Booze - What Every Teenager Needs To Know, Sunday 19 November 2006, 10.15 pm, 91Èȱ¬ One
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