The Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson says we need to recognise the concept of what he has called 'passive drinking' the devastating damage done to innocent parties from others' boozing - including harm to the unborn fetus, acts of drunken violence, vandalism, sexual assault and child abuse, and the huge health burden carried by both the NHS and friends and family who care for those damaged by alcohol. In comparing the effects of alcohol to those of smoking tobacco, he draws attention to how drinking alcohol affects not just the individual drinker but also other people:

'In contrast to smoking, alcohol is too often viewed as a problem for individuals rather than for society. This is not the case. The second-hand effects of alcohol consumption - which I collectively term 'passive drinking' - are more complex in their causation than those of passive smoking, and more wide-ranging in their impact.'

However, as we will be highlighting later this week in a video that also alludes to the damage caused to others by smoking tobacco, 'the quality of life of families and in cities and towns up and down the country is being eroded' not only 'by the effects of excessive drinking' but also but the effects of casual sex - what we might call 'passive sex'.

Adapting Sir Liam's conclusions about alcohol, 'Casual sex kills. It causes family breakdown and violent crime. It costs the economy billions of pounds. It causes misery. It affects many spheres of life and leaves no communities untouched. Quite simply, England is engaging in far too much casual sex. England has a casual sex problem. Casual sex is harming society. Sex is not simply a question for the consenting adults who are involved in it - it is a question of justice for everybody.'

The video is one of two to be released later this month to highlight arguments made in Just Sex by Guy Brandon, published this Friday (20 March).

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