A group of friends are on a night out with Jo, a chimpanzee. At first, Jo is funny, drinking a bottle of beer, but as the evening progresses, he begins to lose control and his friends continually apologise for his behaviour. Later, the group go to a nightclub where Jo becomes rowdier and eventually gets sick in the loo. He ends up slumped on a pile of rubbish in a dark street.

This is the script of one of the adverts which will be running on British TV this summer. While no sensible person would go on a night out with a chimpanzee, the point is that binge drinkers do make monkeys of themselves due to excessive consumption of alcoholic drinks. And as the government, the drinks industry and a host of charities have realised, there are far too many of them around these days.

Britain has always been the European champion in terms of alcohol consumption, but over the last years, it has added another unwanted crown to its cabinet: it is now a nation of binge drinkers.

According to official documents, a binge drinker is someone who gulps down twice the average daily guidelines. This equates to six units (about two thirds of a bottle of wine) for women or eight units (about 2.2 litres of beer) for men.

Research shows that one in every three adult men and nearly one in five women now exceed these limits. Last year, a government report found that Britons were the worst binge drinkers in Europe, with excessive drinking accounting for 40 percent of all drinking occasions by men and 22 percent by women. Drinkers under the age of 16 are consuming twice as much today as they did ten years ago and are likely to get drunk earlier than their European peers.

Although the industry recognises the existence of a problem, it is not happy about the definition of binge drinking. Mark Hastings of the British Beer and Pub Association believes it is too simplistic: ?This means that a fifth of pensioners are binge-drinkers, as is 40 per cent of the population. It is ludicrous!? After all, the UK alcoholic drinks market exceeds £30 billion and generates approximately 1 million jobs.

While the battle about the small print rages on, the alarm bells are ringing. The binge drinking culture has reached astonishing levels. Britain?s drinking problem is now costing the economy £ 20 billion every year with 17 million working days lost due to hangovers and drink-related illness. Alcohol accounted for about half of all violent crime, with up to 70 percent of emergency hospital admissions at peak times due to excessive drinking. It was also associated with 22,000 deaths last year.

<B>Rise in alcohol-related crime</B>

The government has decided to take the bull by its horns. Tony Blair, the Prime minister, summed up the mood last week: ?There is a clear and growing problem in our town and city centre streets up and down the country on Friday and Saturday nights. At a time when overall crime is falling, alcohol-related violent crime is rising. As a society we must make sure that binge drinking doesn?t become the new British disease.?

The drinks industry should feel the heat as from this summer. Sting operations ? sending teenagers into off-licences and bars to catch those encouraging underage drinking ? will be launched, with those found guilty named and shamed. The drinks industry may also be required to help pay for the costs of alcohol misuse, such as extra policing and clean-up operations. It has already been warned to avoid ?irresponsible advertising? to glamorise alcohol to the young.

The cutdown on heavy drinking will have a particular focus on the younger generation. Research into the drinking habits of young adults found 33% admit that drinking too much had led to them being unable to do their job properly the next day. There were 3,322 hospital admissions for children aged 11 to 15 - an average of nine a day - owing to alcohol in 2002-03.

The government has already published an Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy and will also relax licensing laws in 2005 so that pubs and bars do not have to close at 11 pm, which causes drinkers to consume excessive amounts of alcohol in the short period preceding closing time and then to spill out on the streets at the same moment. The same law will give police powers to close premises which allow their customers to get out of hand and will give local residents more say in the granting of licenses.

<B>Encouraging youth to drink heavily</B>

Critics believe that bars open round-the-clock will fuel more heavy drinking and that the government?s strategy is ?a soggy squid of a policy, under-funded and under-promoted, which concentrates on measures proven to have limited effectiveness.? They would prefer to follow France, where the government has raised duty, trained more medical specialists, instituted health warnings on bottle labels, introduced workplace controls, banned television and cinema advertising of alcohol and ended sports sponsorship. Alcohol consumption in France has fallen by 34.4 per cent over the past decade while Britain?s has risen by 25 per cent.

The government has warned the industry that stringent measures will be taken against those who ?refuse to play ball?. It is particularly irritated at companies indulging in promotions encouraging the young to drink heavily, such as entries to nightclubs guaranteeing free alcohol all night or cheap drinks served during happy hours.

?The happy hour has existed in London for a long time in terms of attracting people into wine bars, but they are very detrimental where those that are promoting them know perfectly well that, for instance, three for 50p in an hour will fuel excessive drinking later by very young customers who will get themselves into difficulty,? said David Blunkett, the Home Secretary.

Far from the decor of a pub, a 13-year old in a hooded top and jeans rode his bicycle onto the train platform of a suburban train station last Friday. He stopped by a stranger with whom he exchanged a few words and some crumpled bank notes. The stranger disappeared for a few minutes before coming back and giving the boy three bottles of vodka. Britain has a drinking problem and it is increasingly becoming part of the culture.

<B>by Ryan Coopamah</B>

<I>Outlook correspondent in London E-mail: [email protected]</I>