THEY’RE YOUNG, they’re drunk, and they don’t see the problem. That’s the stark, frightening and ironically rather sobering message coming from Arbroath’s under-age drinkers.

In some cases the juvenile tearaways regularly plaguing areas of the Angus town at night, high on cider, beer, wine and spirits, have not even reached their teens.

The town made shocking headlines recently when police picked up a 12-year-old girl so intoxicated that she needed hospitalised. The potential consequences of youngsters drinking so much that they will pass out may be apparent to responsible citizens but the issue doesn’t seem to be troubling the baby boozers much.

One young drinker Mitch (not his real name) is 14 and said he enjoys “the buzz” he gets from alcohol.

He is one of a number of youths who regularly escape to areas like the dark, shaded environs of Arbroath’s elevated Keptie Water Tower to binge drink on cheap cider bought from a corner shop.

The lofty vantage point allows the drinkers to congregate off the street and gives warning of trouble, ie the police, approaching.

Once drunk, an area then terrorised by out-of-control youngsters is the West Port, where business owners and residents say they are fed up contacting the police to report rowdy and abusive behaviour.

Jean Whyte, who runs a local corner shop, says it’s becoming a case of “batten down the hatches” on a Friday night and hope that weekends pass without too much trouble.

“Between 5 o’clock and 7 o’clock on a Friday is when they are out looking for their drink from the local off-licences,” she said.

“They then congregate in nearby Weaver’s Close or the big car park behind Millgate where they can hide and get drunk.

“I think if the police showed a bit more presence during these times and kept moving them on then it would help.”

On recent occasions Mrs Whyte says she has watched youngsters brawling in the street while others filmed the scuffles with their mobile phones. At times there can be groups of up to 40 youths, which she says is very intimidating.

The young drunks also scrawl obscene messages on windows with chip oil, ketchup and in some cases blood. There’s also the mess, broken bottles, empty tins and plastic bags, not to mention the spills of vomit.

Mitch said he didn’t see any particular problem with getting drunk at such a young age.

“I like the feeling when you’re buzzing and I just see it as having a laugh,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as people make out. It’s not every night, mostly just on a Friday or Saturday and at least it’s not like we’re doing drugs.”

Perhaps the most troubling aspect for the youths then would be getting their hands on the alcohol in the first place.

Not so, it seems. A number of methods would appear to have been devised, most popular being older relatives, or those less responsible adult members of the community purchasing on the youngsters’ behalf.

It has been claimed that mobile telephone numbers of those prepared to buy alcohol for the kids—either for a small monetary gain or a “free” bottle or packet of cigarettes for themselves in the transaction—are well known and widely used.

The kids’ stories are backed by official reports into the problem. A recent paper by the Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS) revealed that in Angus 47% of 15-year-olds and 27% of 13-year-olds had drunk alcohol in the last week.

For both age groups, the figures were not significantly different from reported national figures.

The SALSUS asked a similar question to try to measure binge drinking and asked pupils to report how many times they had consumed five or more drinks on the same occasion. In Angus, 36% of 13-year-olds and 56% of 15-year-olds reported that they had consumed five or more drinks on the same occasion at least once in the last 30 days.

The impact on health was also explored, and in 2002-03 there were 10 alcohol- related acute hospital discharges of young people under the age of 24 in Angus. The majority of hospital discharges for under-16s involved acute intoxication.

The SALSUS report also highlights the availability of alcohol, revealing that at the end of 2004 there were 402 liquor licences in force in Angus. This equates to 47 licences per 10,000 people aged 18 and over, compared with the Scottish average of 43 per 10,000 population.

In Angus the main sources of commercially bought alcohol for 15-year-olds were off-licences (19%), shops (15%), pubs (12%) and supermarkets (8%). Thirteen-year-olds were less likely to buy their alcohol from commercial premises, though 8% reported buying alcohol from a shop and 7% from an off-licence.