'Health Secretary: Teetotallers should be celebrated'

Teetotallers should be celebrated instead of shunned as pariahs, the Health Secretary will say today. In a devastating assessment of Britain's addiction to alcohol, Alan Johnson will dismiss ' whimsical' notions that the Government could succeed in creating a continental 'cafe culture' - Daily Mail ​

Pubs opening at 6am in Edinburgh are set to become a thing of the past as tough new licensing laws come into force. City chiefs have ruled that pubs cannot open for more than 16 hours a day, in a move set to hit early morning bars the hardest - The Scotsman ​

Knocking back alcohol every day is more dangerous than binge-drinking, research has found. More than 70 per cent of people with booze-related liver disease drink daily rather than guzzling large amounts on occasional blow-outs. Most also downed more than 30 units a week, the equivalent of 16 pints. They also started drinking younger than other people, at 15 on average. Southampton University's Dr Nick Sheron, who led the study, said: "We need to pay as much attention to the frequency of drinking occasions as we do to binge drinking" - The Sun​

Even those addicted to alcohol drink less when costs rise, says economist Tim Harford. Because we all respond to prices - even to the point of the day we die or give birth… Even so, it's hard to credit that problem drinkers pay much attention to the price of the next drink. Yet they do. Alcoholics respond more to high alcohol prices than moderate drinkers - BBC​

A community has come together to try and buy the last pub in their village after it closed down. The committee, set up to produce a business plan, aims to run the Pengwern Arms at Llan Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, as a hotel - BBC ​

If the minimum price per unit was set to 50p, for example, professionals believe this would decrease consumption by high-risk drinkers by 10.3 per cent, while consumption by low-risk drinkers would fall by only 3.5 per cent. For some high-risk drinkers, such a decrease would be sufficient to bring them out of the high-risk category and would benefit drinkers' own health - The North West Evening Mail​