Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Can't see this working either...

Cardiff it seems has a cunning plan to deal with 'binge drinker' it's apparently decided to video them and show them the results at a later date.
Telegraph.
Revellers in Cardiff will be filmed entering the new city centre clinic, which is being opened on certain evenings to take pressure off accident and emergency departments.
Conrad Edymann, head of substance misuse strategy and development for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, said drinkers who entered the clinic would be able to view it "when they have achieved a level of sobriety".
He added: “Our intention is that the vast majority of people will be surprised and hopefully concerned about the state of their behaviour.”
Nobody would be forced to watch it, he said, and all footage of a patient would be destroyed when they left the clinic. Patients would not be able to take footage away, he emphasised.
Mr Eydmann said that was important because they did not want drinkers misbehaving on purpose so they could have “a trophy item to put up on social networking sites”.
Well Mr Eydmann has already highlighted on reason it probably won't work in that those doing the binge drinking will either not give a damn or would simply not be bothered to watch it. The UK's culture of drinking is different to pretty much anywhere else's and so far all attempts to change it have faltered in the bloody minded intransigence of those who do it. This is mostly because the idiots who decide they can force change on the population are attempting to 'cure' the result, not the cause.
Raising prices simply meant people would tank up on cheap booze before they went out, or smuggle it in to places where they chose to go. The high price of a legal activity often meant that revellers would seek illegal highs in their determination to have a good time.
People work hard and play hard in the UK and you aren't going to make them change their ways by videoing them. Perhaps a look at just why people need to tank up in the first place would give them a better idea on how to cope rather than telling us what to do all the time.
Either way, this won't stop people drinking and it won't do anything about the causes behind it. It might even be a breach of their rights to film them without their permission.

2 annotations:

pa_broon74 said...

Many night clubs already have staff photographers who snap revellers and post it onto their facebook pages.

Indeed, many revellers themselves take picture or video footage of themselves and stick it on line, I can't see how this will work except as a trophy of the nights escapades.

How about government starts behaving in a less cynical grasping fashion, how about they start telling the truth instead of obfuscating. Some straight answers every now and again instead of some sort of weird recorded lizardspeak.

People go mental at the weekend because they don't care. They don't care because the people who are supposed to manage things on our behalf are a bunch of feckless arseholes.

Feckless arseholes telling people not to be feckless arseholes, aye, that'll work.

Anonymous said...

How about government starts behaving in a less cynical grasping fashion, how about they start telling the truth

Or better still, if they shut their mouths and unscrewed the economy.

I wish I could drink to excess, but I have a job to do and weekends are short when you're busy.