Stupid

There are some similarities between the current financial crisis and the issue around young people and alcohol abuse. One of the similarities is the government’s obsession about deregulation, or poor regulation, in some areas.
In the financial world credit was made too easily available. Individuals and institutions were allowed to borrow way beyond their means or their ability to pay back the debts they had incurred. With alcohol we have seen a similar liberalisation of the laws relating to the sale of drink. Alcohol is now so easily available from virtually every newsagent, corner shop and supermarket that it has become almost impossible to police properly and yet people appear surprised when young kids hang around their local park at night and get pissed.
Supermarkets doing loss leaders flog 4 cans of strong lager for not much more than many pubs can manage to sell a pint. Licensing authorities cannot reasonably refuse a license to anyone unless there is a history of trouble (which there’s not going to be if they are applying for a new license) and local authority trading standards officers cannot cope with the amount of new outlets in order to see who is selling to underage people. More often than not the licensing authorities are risk averse and don’t want to take away a license even when people have been proved to have sold alcohol to young people because they know an appeal is likely to succeed in reinstating the license.
In the meantime, young people become increasingly exposed to alcohol, and pubs are going bust on a weekly basis. Crazy!