Such a Tax would penalise unfairly well-behaved people who like a drink now and then but can't afford to pay even more for it. I wonder if limiting the hours of opening of clubs, pubs etc, ie revoking the open-ended Licensing Laws is the only answer. I don't myself see why people should be stravaging about the streets at three in the morning. People might then go home at, say one o'clock. The Police could then be stood down much earlier. (There IS a law which forbids serving alcohol to an already intoxicated person, but I wonder if this is ever adhered to?) How do more civilised countries manage to keep their drunks down to a minimum?