We reported that data collected from Canberra and Calvary hospitals by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine indicated more than one in six patients presenting to their emergency departments on Friday and Saturday nights had consumed alcohol prior to their arrival.

This compared to just one per cent who admitted to illicit drug use.

ACEM president, Simon Judkins, said the three month study confirmed the disproportionate level of community harm caused by alcohol and highlighted the need for further reform.

It also confirmed the anecdotal evidence collected by this newspaper when, in March 2105, a reporter and photographer spent a night in the emergency department at Calvary.

That report began: "At 12.45am on a Tuesday morning the drunk in bed eight wakes up and he's not happy".

It detailed assaults on hospital staff, attempts by inebriated patients to self-harm, aggressive behaviours and abusive language that would not be tolerated in any other workplace.

The Canberra Times had been following up on a national survey of 2000 emergency department staff which revealed hospitals were battlegrounds dominated by drunk, and often aggressive, patients. It found up to one in eight patients had ended up in hospital as a result of alcohol abuse.

On the night we visited Calvary four out every five ED patients were alcohol affected.

"I've been punched, I got hit in the head with a mobile phone while I was heavily pregnant, then there are people getting needle sticks and getting splashed (when patients rip their drip out).. you get pretty good at ducking and weaving," registrar Clare Foss said at the time.

While there are those who will, in the defence of vested interests, attempt to play down the true extent of the problem, the reality is a disproportionate proportion of those people presenting to EDs on weekends are alcohol affected to a significant degree.

While the alcohol itself may not be the reason for the attending, it has, more often than not, contributed to the injury for which treatment is sought.

Drunks are significantly more likely to fall over and hurt themselves or to become involved in street altercations.

The biggest challenge facing doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance officers, police and security staff is the all embracing ubiquity of alcohol, and alcohol abuse, in Australian society.

While it is right for us to be concerned about the increasing consumption of ice and MDMA, and the perennial abuse of marijuana, heroin and cocaine, the truth is that alcohol does far more damage to the social fabric than all the rest put together.

This is because the so-called "social lubricant" is the one drug of addiction that can be found in almost every home across the country. It is readily available from most supermarkets and in bars, clubs and hotels. It seems to be a classic case of familiarity breeding contempt.

Given experience has shown it is effectively impossible to legislate against human stupidity and weakness, education may prove to be the best long term solution.

The time seems right to revisit some of those public education campaigns the Australian health sector does so well.