7 euros for a beer

Fridaynight. You and your friends are at the bar. Drinking lots and lots of beer. Everyone has done this at least once. Drinking alcohol seems to be very normal. Everywhere around the world. But why? Alcohol is a drug. It changes your mood. Makes you less scared, and makes you do things you might regret. Alcohol is the cheapest drug available. You can buy alcohol almost everywhere. Should alcohol be this accessible?

Drinking too much might be your dead

I think alcohol should be at least more expensive. In the Dutch supermarkets, you can get half a liter of beer for less than an euro. If the alcohol price rises, people automatically will buy less. This reduces overdrinking or even drinking yourself into a coma or death. Every year ±800 people in the Netherlands only die due to drinking too much.*

Prevent addiction

Alcohol is, like any other drug, addictive. If drinking alcohol wasn’t as normal as it is today, people wouldn’t become an addict this easily. As a young kid you see your parents drinking with friends and grow up with the idea that drinking alcohol is normal. When you turn 18 (or younger) you drink your first glasses of alcohol with your friends. You feel like a grownup and you start liking the feeling of being drunk. Then you start drinking, not for the taste, but for the alcohol. That’s when you put yourself in a risky position. ‘Cause drinking for the feeling can easily lead to addiction. I think lots of teenagers are addicted to alcohol without realising it. Young people drink so they don’t have to feel, or to fill up the emptiness they feel inside. The younger you start drinking, the harder it will become to stop drinking.

Alcohol causes cancer

And what about your health? Alcohol contains a carcinogenic substance. Even drinking little amounts of alcohol increases the chance of getting cancer. Alcohol also increases the change of a high blood pressure, cerebral hemorrhage, liver disorders and organ damages. Alcohol should be more expensive, just like cigarettes and maybe even have a sticker with scary pictures and texts about the consequences of drinking. Commercials of alcohol should be illegal. Supporting people to do drugs is inacceptable.