BOOZE FAULT IS IT?

0 Comments | Daily Mirror, The; London (UK), Nov 28, 2007 | by SUE CARROLL

A COUPLE of Saturdays ago I had the misfortune to walk among the undead.

It was 2am and I was in London’s Oxford Street negotiating my way round gangs of drunken youths and aggressive women, all the worse for wear.

Taxis were reluctant to stop – I couldn’t blame them. Ambulances, sirens blazing, screamed down the street on a mission, one presumes, to retrieve another drunk from the gutter.

Since the introduction of 24-hour drinking, 999 calls to the ambulance services have risen 12 per cent.

The ramifications were made graphically clear this week by our health correspondent Emily Cook. She spent a night with paramedics who clean and stitch up binge drinkers who fall down stairs and under buses.

Some lose control of their bowels, others their minds, as they lie in pools of vomit
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