Many people are rightly alarmed at town centres full of large groups of loud, and sometimes violent, drinkers in the early hours of the morning.

While many may support some measures that government might take, we should be careful that the rights of the vast majority of responsible drinkers are respected.

I do not know what measures may be proposed - but I have listed the first thoughts that came to me:
- Raise the age at which drink can be purchased.
- Make it illegal to drive having had anything to drink.
- Ban all public drinking - except in private or licensed premises.
- Sharply increase the price of drink.
Such proposals may well be considered and may seem easy answers to the problem - but they would curb everyone's rights in the process.

I say this because, as a smoker, it is reminiscent of the debate and the propaganda build-up to the smoking ban. It would have been very easy to allow bars and restaurants that could have offered separate indoor smoking areas to do so. Government and society decided there would be no freedom of choice.

While solutions to such problems should be sought, should not individual rights, lifestyle choices and freedoms also be protected wherever possible? A simple majority decision for all problems will always leave minorities disenfranchised.

If you wake up to find that alcoholic drink taken to a countryside picnic is illegal, or that your favourite food item has been banned because it contributes towards obesity, that is where it leads.
I am concerned that we are entering a neo-puritanical brave new world and that our traditional British sense of tolerance is swiftly being eroded. - Malcolm Baxter, Avenue Road, Leamington.