The New York Times had a piece on Sunday on the increase in city drinking, its impact on emergency room admissions and the impact on neighborhoods. Here is an excerpt:
In one of the newer ads, a young man, face bruised, his neck in a brace, is being hauled away in an ambulance. “Two drinks ago,” the copy reads, “this wasn’t your ride.” Two drinks ago, one infers, our subject wasn’t drinking a Rhône Valley white.
The campaign arrived amid discomfiting statistics that made it hard to dismiss as hysteria. In 2009, alcohol was responsible for more than 8,840 hospitalizations in New York, a 36 percent increase over 2000. Additionally, the proportion of alcohol-related emergency-room visits among New Yorkers ages 21 to 64 doubled from 2003 to 2009. There were 70,000 such visits just in 2009. More here.
Interesting to think about as the Mission reconsiders its ban on liquor licenses. We’ve written about the ban’s ineffectiveness in lessening the amount of alcohol sold in the Mission.