Star comment: Time to get grip on the booze crisis

Nearly 7,500 people across the county are alcohol dependent and drink has played a part in over half of all accidental fire deaths in the county since 2005, as well as in some of the 29 river deaths.

Nearly one in five adults are binge drinkers, according to the Shropshire Alcohol Strategy for 2013 to 2016.

Outlining the shocking scale of the problem is the easy bit. The hard part is formulating a realistic plan of action when society is in thrall to the lure of alcohol.

Pubs are still central to the staging of our major television soaps, but things have moved on with drink now so cheap in the supermarkets that youngsters tank up before going out and others sit at home downing bottles of wine.

You only have to witness what goes on in the streets of any major town or city in Britain in the early hours of a Sunday to realise the impact of drink on our communities.

Drinking is in turn portrayed as glamorous and laddish. Heroes and heroines who in an earlier time would have put a cigarette to their lips in a supposedly alluring fashion now put a glass to their lips and so subconsciously provide role models to all those impressionable people who want to fashion themselves in their image.

In tandem with the human toll is a very heavy financial toll as a result of all the damage done by people who are in drink.

Bottles carry lame messages urging people to drink responsibly. Maybe one day we will all be adult enough to enjoy drink in the social way that those on the continent do.

But at the moment, these figures show that the call for responsible drinking is forlorn.