A new study has confirmed the image of heavy drinking Danes, with reports of 25 youths dying from alcohol abuse since 2002.
The National Board of Health probe also revealed that around 3,000 young people have been admitted to local hospitals in the same period due to alcohol poisoning or excessive drunkenness.
The Copenhagen Post reports that teenagers between 15 and 19 years were more than twice as likely to find themselves in hospital due to alcohol poisoning than their counterparts in their twenties.
Mia Fischermann, the National Board of Health’s departmental physician, said the report clearly highlighted the seriousness of the youth drinking culture in Denmark.
“Young people in Northern Europe generally don’t drink as often as those in southern Europe, but when they drink, they drink more. The Danish youth distinguish themselves from other north European teenagers, because they both drink often and they drink the most,” said Fischermann.
The Danish government is debating a new proposal that would see the age limit for buying alcohol in shops rise from 16 to 18 years of age.
Sounds like a good idea to raise the drinking age, I’m sure it wouldn’t be popular in Denmark, but 16 seems pretty young to be able to buy alcohol for yourself.
[…] Young Danes dying from alcohol abuse […]
The definitions surrounding alcohol, alcoholics, alcohol abuse, well, they are extremely open-ended, sometimes can seem very subjective, and at best confusing. No two people really have the same definition or idea about what alcohol abuse really is. Each person experiences alcohol in such a different way. It causes so many different physical, and physiological changes in people, it is hard to set boundaries broad-range and across the board.
thats too bad