True cost of alcohol

Alcohol is costing us millions of dollars and seriously affecting the wellbeing of our society.
I hate to think how many millions of dollars alcohol abuse is costing our society in trying to provide “cures” instead of offering prevention.
Excessive alcohol abuse would be the main cause of such a blowout in hospital and medical costs.
It does not take Houdini to understand that our hospitals are full to overloading because of alcohol excess.
By attempting to reduce alcohol consumption our medical costs would be reduced dramatically.
We have been able to reduce smoking with legislation.
Smoking generally only affects the user, but alcohol affects not only the user but friends family and loved ones because a person who has consumed excessive alcohol has little thought for others.
I see no valid reason as to why we cannot introduce appropriate legislation similarly to that of smoking except to say that the tax revenue might be lowered and the alcohol industry might suffer less profits.
We can improve the wellbeing of society in so many ways. Yes we can do it!
Ron Roberts,
Cranbourne.