Serious boozers will have forgotten what to do with the foreground item. Don’t worry, just ignore that bit.
(Picture decanted from here, where the site owners are too drunk to do HTML)
Prohibition is coming, because we all drink too much and must be punished by Righteous decree. As before, this will mean illegal trade in dodgy booze made from methanol and Toilet Duck, and will affect nobody who drinks to get drunk. They’ll just drink it faster and care even less about what’s in it as long as it’s cheap, and they’ll end up costing the health service far more than those who queue up at ‘Livers R Us’ at the moment. Oh, and let’s not forget that those who want nothing more than to get off their faces will soon find that cocaine is cheaper than beer. That’ll really cut down crime and hospital admissions, eh?
The move would be welcomed by many medical professionals, with alcohol-related illnesses costing the NHS £3 billion a year.
Look, medical professionals, I haven’t bothered any of you in fifteen years. Don’t provoke me, or I’ll turn into a raging hypochondriac and you’ll see me every day for the next fifteen years. Every. Single. Day. I will present with symptoms of every disease in all your books and just to make it easy for you, I’ll catch them in alphabetical order. Sometimes I’ll catch them at 3 am, but not to worry, I’ll give you a call if that happens. You meddle in my life, I’ll meddle in yours. As a bonus, I’ll leave a few real diseases in your waiting room. That’s good for business, right?
I’ve also noticed how it always costs the NHS the same amount. Whether smoking, obesity or booze, it’s the same nice round figure. Are they all so equally bad or could it be, just perhaps, that the figure is… made up? Surely not. Oh, who am I kidding? It’s all made up, always has been. So is this:
The total expense to the taxpayer of alcohol misuse is thought to £25 billion a year.
The taxpayers. The ones who pay taxes on their income, and again on that bottle of whisky they buy to relax after paying the Gorgon’s highwaymen their cut. The ones who pay the taxes that pay for the NHS. The ones who pay the wages of Sir Liam Donaldson so that he can fix them when they get ill. Taxpayers pay for the NHS so it can fix them when they get ill. The NHS doesn’t want to do that. The NHS wants to take the money and use it to tell us we can’t get ill because that would use up some of the money we pay into the system in case we get ill.
What a scam. The Krays would be so proud. ‘Protection racket’ is too small an accusation for this.
So if the price of booze doubles, we won’t get ill, right? Therefore we have no further need of the NHS and you, Liam Righteous Donaldson, are fired.
Perhaps we could use his salary to employ a few doctors who actually want to do some doctoring, and leave the life decisions to us?
It’s too much to ask, I know. Might as well ask for a politician with a conscience.