Substance abuse experts today accused the government of "bewildering complacency" in failing to address the growing problem of binge drinking, after a report found young teenagers have easy access to alcohol.

Nick Heather, emeritus professor of alcohol and drug studies at Northumberland University, called for a public health campaign to provide the public with better information about the risks of alcohol consumption, in the wake of the study by NHS Health Scotland.

The research, published in the British Medical Journal, found that young people in the UK have little problem getting hold of cigarettes, drugs and alcohol, despite legal constraints.

It found alcohol was easy for young people to obtain, especially since the real price of drinks in the UK has halved since the 1960s.

The researchers state: "Around 80% of 15 year olds in the UK perceive alcoholic drinks to be very or fairly easy to obtain."

Up to half of 12 to 15 year olds who consume alcohol never buy it, but by the age of 15 a substantial minority are able to get it from pubs, off licences or shops. By the age of 16 and 17, most drinkers usually buy alcohol themselves.

Prof Heather said that ministers needed to tackle the "astonishing double standard" that exists with regards to attitudes towards alcohol consumption and illicit drug use.

He said there needed to be the same level of warnings about alcohol consumption as there were about smoking, given that the former causes just as much ill health and more social unrest.

He said: "Young people are beginning to drink alcohol from a much younger age. There's no learning process - there's no longer a tradition in which young people learn to drink in the company of older adults."

Clare Gerada, a south London GP and a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said: "We've never had a generation before which has started drinking at such a young age. We need to start tackling alcohol as a health problem and not just a cause of crime."

The Scottish study noted inconsistencies in the approach to tackling alcohol and cigarette use in young people. While cigarette prices have been kept high, the government has rejected the use of price controls to influence alcohol demand.

They also found that underage smokers could easily acquire cigarettes - despite them only being legally available to over-16s. Most often they received them from friends or family, but most regular smokers aged 12 to 15 said they could buy them from shops.

When they looked at illegal drugs, the researchers found that around a third of 13 year olds and two-thirds of 15 year olds thought they were very or fairly easy to obtain - especially cannabis. Between 10-20% of 10 to 12-year-olds said they had been offered illegal drugs, rising to two-thirds of 15-year-olds. By the age of 15, at least 10% claim to have been offered heroin, cocaine or crack cocaine.

The study said: "Two-thirds of 15 year olds say they know where they can easily buy cannabis; a quarter say it can easily be bought at school."