Chrsitmas alcohol campaigns: Glasgow, Blackpool, Cambridgeshire

• A major campaign is running in Glasgow to encourage revellers to drink safely over the festive period. Clubbers and pubgoers will be bombarded by the message to "play safe" over the next few weeks, in a bid to cut drunkenness and disorder in the city centre.  Warning adverts will be shown on the big screen in Buchanan Street, and the Play Safe message will be projected in St Enoch Square and Buchanan Street.  Posters and billboards displaying the Play Safe message will be plastered across the city, as well as in licensed premises, universities and taxis.  Evening Times

• ‘Have one on us’ - that’s the offer from BSafe Blackpool this Christmas. The message from Blackpool Primary Care Trust, Blackpool Police, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Services and Blackpool Council – working in partnership under BSafe Blackpool - is a simple one: Have fun but BSafe during the festive period.  Representatives from all of these agencies will be out in force in the town centre giving out free bottles of water to remind people of the ALTN8 campaign - alternate alcoholic and soft drinks the party period.  The bottles of water are branded with one of two messages.  Concerned at the 119% rise in house fires in December last year, Lancashire Fire Rescue service are telling Blackpool residents: 'Don't be a turkey this Christmas - Don't be a drunken cook' Lancashire Constabulary

Hear more about what's going on in Blackpool in a forthcoming Alcohol Policy UK podcast

• Cambridgeshire police are warning drinkers in pubs and clubs across Peterborough about the dangers of drink-spiking.  As part of Operation Sodium – the Christmas crackdown on alcohol-related crime – they are urging party-goers to watch over drinks and keep an eye on friends when out enjoying themselves over Christmas and New Year.  Chief superintendent Paul Phillipson, who is leading the campaign, said: "Although reported incidents of drink-spiking in Cambridgeshire are low, I would urge people to watch their drinks when they are out enjoying themselves.  Evening Telegraph 

Previous posts on drink spiking here