State interference.

The anti-alcohol Nazi's are at it again using Health and Safety llegislation to increase the price of a drink.

Guardian.

An influential committee of MPs will next month urge the government to bring in a minimum price for alcohol in an attempt to reduce drink-related deaths, injuries and accidents.
The move, by the House of Commons health select committee, will reopen the debate around a measure which the BMA and the chief medical officer support but the prime minister, Gordon Brown, opposes. Imposing a minimum price of 50p a unit of alcohol wherever it is sold could save 3,000 lives a year, curb binge drinking and make drink harder to obtain for those on lower incomes, the MPs say.
The prime minister has ruled out minimum pricing on the grounds that it would be unfair on the large majority of drinkers whose consumption poses no problem to themselves or others. But Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer for England, advocates the change, as do some Labour MPs, the BMA, Royal College of Physicians and others in the medical establishment.
The MPs' strongly worded report on alcohol also accuses the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) of "extraordinary naivety" over the introduction of 24-hour drinking. Their report is particularly critical of the DCMS, which sponsored the Licensing Act 2003 that allowed licensed premises to open around the clock from late 2005, and its claim that extended licensing hours would lead to more laid back, European-style drinking patterns in the UK.
The 120-page report, which was finalised last week and is out on 7 January, says: "The department has shown extraordinary naivety in believing that the Licensing Act 2003 would bring about a civilised cafe culture."
The MPs are highly critical of those who produce and sell alcohol. Their efforts to minimise drink-related harm and propose a series of tough new measures will alarm the drinks industry, some of whose concerns may be echoed by the DCMS and Peter Mandelson's business department.

 Scaremongering as ever, the problem isn't drinkers as such it's drunks and the police already have powers to deal with drunks, their only problem is that the paperwork involved means they spend too much time at the office and not out dealing with them.
So what does the state come up with, well as usual it's the lets tax it out of existence ploy. This is despite the fact that a) it wont work, because b) if it gets too expensive people will find something else cheaper and probably worse.
You wont change a culture of binge drinking by making alcohol prohibitively expensive, what you will get is social unrest because the populace has no legitimate means of letting off steam. The Romans knew this which is why the Emperors had the bread and circuses thing, kept the populace happy and not stringing up the Emperor. Even the Soviet block had that figured, they staved off the inevitable collapse for years by keeping booze and food cheap.
Britons have very few cheap ways now to let off steam, everythings been taxed or health and safetied to the point of not being worth doing. People like the feeling of a bit of risk, particularly the young and legislating away the danger or preventing them from relaxing will only lead to greater social unrest and more problems for the police to deal with. If the state thinks things are bad now wait till they see what happens if the people can't easily let off steam.

Leaving people alone, letting them take risks however dangerous to themselves and keeping the states nose out of our business is the answer. But these busybodies are too power happy and meddlesome ever to see that.