CIGARETTES AND BOOZE BELOVED BY YOUNG BRITS

LONDON, March 26 (Reuters) - Hard-drinking and hooked on smoking, more and
more young Britons are turning their backs on 1980s health culture, a
government survey released Thursday showed.

If Oasis can lay claim to be Britain's pop kings of the 1990s, then the
survey suggests their smash hit ``Cigarettes and Alcohol'' could be the
decade's anthem.

One in eight young men drinks to excess, sinking more than 50 units of
alcohol each week, while nearly half broke the government's old safe
drinking recommendation.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which interviewed 17,000 adults
between April 1996 and March 1997, said 41 percent of young men aged 18-24
drink more than 21 units of alcohol per week -- the highest proportion ever.

A unit is defined as one glass of wine, a single shot of spirits or a
half-pint of beer. For years, the government advised men to drink no more
than 21 units of alcohol per week and women to stick to 14 or less.

Two years ago, those recommendations were increased to 28 and 21 units
respectively.

``We're very disturbed by these figures. They underline our actions last
year in condemning the way in which Alcopops were being marketed in
particular,'' a spokesman for the British Medical Association said.

Alcopops are fruit-flavored alcoholic drinks blamed for encouraging
under-age drinking.

Young women have also developed more of a taste for the demon drink, with
one in four drinking more than 14 units per week, compared with one in
seven in 1984.

Years of public campaigns to highlight the dangers of smoking had a
dramatic effect in the 1970s and 1980s but the latest ONS General Household
Survey shows the message is now falling on deaf ears, particularly among
women.

In 1996, 28 percent of women smoked, well below the 41 percent in 1974 but
up from 26 percent in 1994. The proportion of male smokers was 29 percent.

Again, the young were most likely to smoke with 43 percent of 18-24
year-old men puffing away regularly, alongside 36 percent of young women.
In 1988, only 37 percent of young men smoked.

``This is why we continue to put pressure on the government to ban tobacco
advertising. Until they do so, these figures will continue to rise,'' the
BMA spokesman said.

There was also evidence that Britain was becoming a nation of
hypochondriacs. More than a third of people interviewed said they were
suffering from a long-standing illness, up from just 21 percent in 1972.

That may well be due to changing perceptions of health and what constitutes
an illness, the ONS said. But the pressures on the National Health Service
are all too clear.

Sixteen percent of respondents said they had been to the doctor in the two
weeks prior to the interview, up from 12 percent in 1981. And 15 percent
said they had visited a hospital as an out-patient over the previous three
months.

The report's statistics on car ownership will be read with particular
interest by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, the government's transport
supremo, who says two-car families are a symptom of a failed transport policy.

With living standards steadily rising, the ONS found that the number of
households with more than one car rose sharply from one in 10 in 1972 to
one in four in 1996.