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We're counting the cost of drinking to excess, gritter claims are taken with a pinch of salt and new club boxes clever

Scotland's battle with the booze is costing every adult 900 a year – a total of 3.56 billion.

What a load of rubbish. 1.46bn in "suffering" caused by premature deaths? Says who? How can it be quantified in any meaningful way?

Urban Guerrilla

Alcohol education clearly doesn't work. Cheap booze is more or less the same price as it was at the start of the 90s and alcohol related crime has soared. I say give minimum pricing a go – it can be ditched if it doesn't work.

Boswall

Alcohol related vandalism has directly cost me 000's over the last 10 years. I can see that the police spend 90% of their time dealing with drunken yobs; time that could be much better spent. I pay for that indirectly, as do I pay for the inordinate amount of time spent by the NHS on alcohol related issues. Someone constantly drinking to excess is a drain on national resources.

JFW

Why is it that in Spain where alcohol prices are much cheaper than elsewhere in the EU, there are no significant alcohol problems except for those caused by UK binge drinkers?

Unimpressed one

It has to be about education and not enforcement. Give us the real facts and treat us like adults and the response will be better.

rob hadnum

Here is an idea, anybody who gets into such a state through alcohol that an emergency service has to be called to deal with them should pay for their attendance. We have to pay for every other call out so why not the emergency services?

James (1)

Another figure to get you going was the council claiming 80 per cent of roads in the city were gritted in the big freeze.

The council did about as good a job as it possibly could. It would be sheer stupidity and a waste of public funds to have a once-in-thirty-winters pile of grit kicking about. Most bus services continued and emergency services appeared to be going about their business.

Boswall

Total rubbish from the cooncil. They did a pathetic job. The centre of Edinburgh was a disgrace compared to other cities, e.g. Glasgow.

DAVID

80% eh? Just my luck to live in the 20% bit!

blackley

Some you win . . . Finally, some praise for two former boxing rivals who have converted a church into a new training facility.

I think they are doing a great thing. It will not only give youths a place to go but also give them a focus, as well as improving fitness. A fit body leads to a fit mind! Well done guys.

rolland rat