The Australian National Council on Drugs report, which was released this week, makes for pretty sobering reading. In short the key findings were:
- almost one in eight deaths of people aged under 25 is owed to alcohol
- 60 per cent of all police attendances (including 90 per cent of late-night calls) involve alcohol
- one in five hospitalisations of people under 25 is owed to alcohol
- 20 per cent of Australians drink at levels putting them at risk of lifetime harm
- almost two-thirds of 18–29-year-olds drink ‘specifically to get drunk’.
This is the background to Byron’s even greater problems of late-night intoxication and violence. I wonder how the local Liquor Accord accounts for these findings in their defence of Byron’s late-night alcohol supply.
Dr David Moss, Byron Bay
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
