Pressures mount as binge-drinking hits Italy

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-28 11:26

Young Italians drink beer in downtown Milan August 20, 2009.[Agencies]

MILAN - Gone midnight on the last Saturday in summer and the young people in the square drinking cocktails and beer slur as they chant: "Happy birthday, son of a b---h..."

An unremarkable sight in northern European countries like Britain, it's becoming familiar in Milan as an Italian tradition of touching wine only at meals caves in to the power of binge-drinking.

In a country where proverbially "wine makes good blood" -- a popular belief that moderate alcohol intake makes people good-humored and can be healthy -- the authorities are grappling with a youth drinks culture modeled on the heavy-drinking north.

"We have not yet reached levels seen in the UK but in five years we'll be there. We are not that far off," Dr. Luca Bernardo, an expert in adolescent health at Milan's Fatebenefratelli hospital, told Reuters.

His hospital is in an area surrounded by bars and he said at least every two weeks its emergency room has to treat a young patient who is in an alcoholic coma or severely intoxicated.

It's no surprise to see children as young as 11 to 13 in the emergency room, Bernardo said.

Alcohol advertising, new products such as alcopops aimed at a younger public, boredom and psychological problems can spur youth drinking, doctors say.

In the Milan square near the San Lorenzo Columns, two hoardings overlook the scene: one is for Absolut vodka, the other for Nastro Azzurro beer.

At the bar on the corner where students in their twenties line up, the top drinks are cuba libre, vodka and lemon, gin and tonic, and various brands of beer.

Milan in July became Italy's first city to crack down on youth drinking. In a move applauded by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the business hub set 500-euro fines for the possession and consumption of alcohol by under-16s or those selling to them.

Alcohol's social and economic costs -- estimated by the World Health Organization in 2004 at 5 to 6 percent of gross domestic product -- include increased traffic fatalities.

Italian media regularly report on the "Saturday Night Massacre."

Drunk-driving kills about 2,800 young people every year, according to a proposal in March by center-right ruling party MPs to raise the legal drinking age to 18 and reduce blood alcohol content allowed in driving.

"Public opinion is quite sensitive to this," Senator Lucio Malan, one of the signatories, told Reuters.

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