Thousands of children are being admitted to hospital in England every year because of alcohol-related problems, it was disclosed today.
Figures released in a Parliamentary answer show 3,322 hospital admissions for children aged 11 to 15 - an average of nine a day - owing to alcohol in 2002-03.
More than 2,700 of the admissions were for mental and behavioural disorders while 562 were diagnosed as suffering from the toxic effects of drink.
Liberal Democrats accused ministers of having "dithered and delayed" over action to tackle the problem.
Health spokesman Paul Burstow said: "Teenage binge drinking is out of control.
"Alcohol abuse amongst teenagers is storing up huge long-term health costs.
"The number of children turning up in hospital because of alcohol is shocking."
Earlier this month a sixth-former collapsed and died after a drinking binge on a trip to Germany.
Nicholas Ireland, 17, from Weybridge, Surrey, died at a youth hostel in Hamburg after drinking beer, vodka and tequila with friends.
The pupil from King's College School, Wimbledon, south west London, was already dead when an ambulance arrived and paramedics were unable to resuscitate him.
Policy
A policy to tackle binge drinking was published by the Government last month.
The alcohol harm reduction strategy for England proposes a range of actions, including better education and a review of alcohol advertising to ensure it does not target under 18s and does not encourage irresponsible behaviour.
Charity Alcohol Concern said: "This highlights the importance of making sure that health staff and other professionals who come into contact with these children have the right sort of training and can give them the advice and support they need."
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We also have abuse of alcohol by the not so young, particularly late teens and early twenties, who simply drink too much too quickly, to get drunk, not to enjoy the product. Anybody who watches TV showing youngsters, mostly British, on holiday in Ibiza and Greece and other such resorts, can't fail to be appaled at the behavior of these yobs.Yet these programmes show violence, drunkenness and alcohol abuse at an outrageous level and yet nowhere in these programme is there any question of responsibility for anti-social actions by these not so young. These programmes should start to educate about the dangers of alchohol abuse rather than using it as an opportunity to boost viewing rates by others misfortune.
Raise the age to 21 years before its legal.
to john i am only 21 and i dont drink that much, i may share a bottle of wine with my fiance at a weekend or a few glass of vodka and coke every now and then mostly at christmas with my family.
But me and my fiance before now have gone for a drive at night and seen quite a few teenages hanging out on corners or going into fields with booze and plus they go in to nightclubs aswell, there has been many stories about that, but at the end of the day late teens and early twenty year olds are allowed to get as drunk as they like 11-15 year olds are not, their parents should do something about it instead of letting kids today get away with murder and they even let that in this day and age.
I never once believed that my children would do anything as stupid as binge drinking. That is until I got a call that my 15 year old son had collapsed after downing a bottle of whiskey. He was rushed by ambulance to hospital, where his BP and heartrate was dangerously low. His body temperature was bad too. He remained unconcious for 6 hours.
Thankfully he survived but it had drawn attention to the amount of youngtsers that DON'T make it.
I don't think the true dangers of binge drinking are known to young teenagers. My son is well aware of the dangers of smoking and drugs, but never realised you can die from alchol abuse.
School kids with enough money to get drunk on! Is this the money they get for attending school?
Why do young people feel tht thy have to drink alcohol2 fit in? and why do they all do it because they're board? helloooo?? there is sooo much more 2 life?