ABSTRACT
‘The scandal of our society.’ That is how the British Prime Minister David Cameron described British drinking culture. It seems that tolerance of excessive drinking has been rapidly decreasing in several European countries in recent years. Generally speaking the approach to alcohol abuse in the Netherlands and Western Europe has evolved from a period of repression (1890-1960) to steadily increasing tolerance after 1960. Now the tide seems to be turning once more. Over the past decade the problem of public drunkenness has received a high position on the agenda of several European cities. Rotterdam, for instance, has been participating in a partnership with various French, Belgian and German cities since 2011, with the aim of studying alcohol abuse by young people in public spaces and learning to manage it better. This project, entitled ‘Safer Drinking Scenes’, is being co-funded by the European Commission.
