Children's binge drinking: Italy blames Britain

It is a country traditionally known for it’s Mediterranean mode ration when it comes to drinking. But this summer, Italy has found a British-style binge-drinking epidemic on its hands - much to the horror of parents, health authorities and the government, which has described the problem of alcohol abuse among children and young people as a national emergency. At one time being drunk was a social taboo and a cause for shame, but it is now acceptable in the eyes of many young Italians.

After months of drunken mob scenes police spent the weekend patrolling historic piazzas in Rome to enforce a summer ban on drinking alcohol in the streets, in a scramble to curb the problem. Nine out of 10 young Italians were drinking at weekends, said a government survey out this year. It also showed that getting drunk was the goal for two thirds of boys and a third of girls. That was enough to convince Milan city council to land parents with €900 (£774) fines if their underage children were caught drunk in public. There is also a nationwide campaign by lobby groups - so far unsuccessful - to raise the legal drinking age from 16 to 18.

But it’s not just the younger generation. The number of alcoholics has tripled in the last decade to around 60,000 out of a population of 60 million - still modest by British standards, the same study showed. The crackdown was a response to a fundamental shift in Italian society Michele Sorice, a sociologist at Rome's Luiss university, told The Observer newspaper. "For the first time, the link between drinking and sitting down to eat with the family in Italy has been severed," he said. "Add to that the discovery of spirits by the very young. My students tell me I am old-fashioned because I like a pint, not shots." "Young men see losing control as a way of living a life of excess, just as their fathers saw fast driving," said Sorice. Cheap shots and happy hours brought by an influx of British tourists on cheap flights are being blamed by many for the problem. "We are seeing a strong Anglo-Saxon influence on the culture of drinking," said Gianluca Cecchini, owner of Q's Bar in Trastevere told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "It's got much worse in the last five years. There's a lot more violence, and you see groups of 15 or 20 young teenagers drinking in the streets and causing trouble."There are gangs with knives. It's becoming just like England."

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children