Take that Russia!

Jimmy, Niigata , Japan

it's a terrible problem in both countries :( I have a friends in Alchogolic Anonimus movements, and it seems effective method to help people.

sergey, Moscow,

16th! - We just can't win at anything anymore

Aaron Irvine, Bolton, UK

Fully agree with James. I lived in the UK, and I'm not surprised at all.

Olga, Ufa,

John, the question is not about the validity of Russian data. It is about, how do we reduce and control this epidemic(?).

NSK, Bradford, W Yorks

The average Briton drinks 9.20ltrs of pure alcohol a year. E=Whats that in pints of beer? Since I only drink about 5 pints of beer a year, whose having the rest of my share? I suspect teh Russian figures are skewed because in reality they were too intoxicated to add them up properly.

Ron, Milton Keynes, Bucks

Yes I believe the figures provided by the Russian Authorities, just like the tractor production figures and the grain harvests.

John, Skipton, North Yorkshire

First, in Russia no statistics can be reliable. Russians drink enormously, including toxic surrogates, if they are poor and not very highly educated. Besides this, nearly all Russians know home distillation recipes.
Our Russian statisitian say thatper capita consumption in Russia of pure alcohol is up to 17 liters a year.

Veronica, Moscow, Russian Federation

Only 16th? Come on Britain, we can do better than that!

Michael, Henley,

While not defending the binge drinking culture in the UK, I would just like to point out for the benfit of James and Pierre that the rate of drink driving in France is one of the highest in Europe, second only to Italy. Suddenly the moral high ground has descended a little.

Holly, Birmingham, UK

Nooo! It's not the 24 hour drinking that is the problem, because honestly, where is there actually 24hour drinking in this country?

It's simply that all we have to live for is bad policy and money in this country. All we care about is wealth and not our own wellbeing. If we looked after each other a bit more perhaps we would realise what we are doing to ourselves.

Peter Blackall, Portmsouth,

Although the title was surprising and a good initiator for shock tactics about the state of of Britain's drink epidemic - we must note that the statistics don't actually directly support this.

Firstly, both Britain and Russia are hardly the biggest 'boozers' in the world, being 16th and 18th respectively. What is more interesting is that affluent states such as Luxembourg and Germany, which stereotypically are not associated with a problem drinking culture, are at the head of the list.

Of course, the statistics for child and teenage drunkeness are much more worrying - perhaps the article should have focused on this?

GL, London, UK

A sorry State indeed. On a different note though I'm taking this booze league table with a large serving of salt. "Top was Luxembourg" .....that gave me a good laugh. Where did they pull that from? As any former visitor to that tranquil and timid little state with practically no crime will agree, this is extremely unlikely.

Charles, Brussels,

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

The rush, in just 40 years, to create a socially-engineered multicultural hellhole, has left the indigenous population with nothing: no identity, no culture, no self-worth, constantantly berated as being racist by immigrants who import their own childrens' spouses for fear of polluting their own culture; told by their own politicians (cf: George Gallaway) and the BBC that they are the inheritors of a worthless history and ' the sooner they disappear from the face of the earth the better '.

So they drown their nihilism in alcohol, as did their forefathers of 200 years ago in the rookeries of London.

But at least their forebears were sent to the army to fight - and fight well - for king and country.

The educated middle classes are abandoning the sinking ship in droves - removing all positive role models. All that remains are drink sodden and drug-taking pop-stars to light the way to self destruction.

Decline and fall indeed.

Pierre, Paris,

We now have generations with no prospects of any work, no decent housing, schools and hospitals full of immigrants, no law and order. Much, much worse is yet to come.

Roger, Surrey,

WOW... and i thought we drank like fish

erin, Las Cruces, USA

If you live in the UK why would you be surprised?

James, Mortain, France