Dr. Suzanne Crowe

And we would see it particularly in the emergency departments.

And that's the reason why I wanted to draw parents' attention to this in the next couple of weeks, because we're heading into junior third season.

And that will be a real flashpoint when it comes to kids aged 15 and 16 drinking.

Well, the research shows that about a third of 15 year olds have consumed alcohol regularly.

by the time they've reached 15.

And if you look, if you pick out that group of 15 year olds,

a substantial proportion of them are binge drinking.

So it's not like they're having a slow glass of lager on a Friday night.

It's not the adult kind of model of drinking.

They're way overrepresented in terms of very problematic types of drinking, which puts them at huge risk both at the time that they're drinking, but we also know from the international literature

that the harm in terms of mental health, poor mental health in the years following dependency on alcohol and other substances

and also the risk of suicide are all increased if you track that group of young people who are drinking or who are binge drinking when they're age 15.

Yeah, it is a problem.

And I think, you know, whenever we think of a health issue,

We think about the prevention and the legal aspect around stopping kids from getting alcohol.

But we'd be far more effective if we kind of delve into the reasons why kids are drinking.

And we need to think about providing them for other outlets.

Yeah, indeed.

Australia have tackled it.

But also, I think the most notable example would be Iceland, who had a big issue with teenage binge drinking going back 10 or 15 years ago.