I live in Sherbrooke, Quebec. This past year, we did a study of cases of young people aged 12 to 24 who were hospitalized for alcohol-related emergencies. That means not only intoxication, but all medical emergencies related to alcohol consumption. It could be an altercation when people are leaving a bar, a car accident, or anything related to excessive alcohol consumption. There were a lot of cases, in fact. In Sherbrooke, between 2012 and 2017, these cases occurred every two days among people aged 12 to 24.
We did a follow-up this year. We wanted to see if there had been an increase in emergency admissions for cases related to the consumption of alcopops, and those cases had indeed increased.
The problem is not just that young people get drunk. The problem is that they get so drunk that they have to go to emergency. It is noteworthy that 25% of these young people admitted to emergency wards are a code 1 or code 2, which means that their life is at risk. They are not just drunk; it is much more serious than that. Further, 57% of the young people admitted to emergency wards in Sherbrooke had experienced complications.