Drinking is a public health menace in the UK, inflicting a wide range of medical and social harms. There are deaths from cirrhosis of the liver, damage to the pancreas, degeneration of the brain and infertility - it affects pretty much every bodily system.

People drink and choke to death on vomit - it's hideous. Many road accidents are caused by people's blood alcohol level being too high; there is violence in the streets; and people have accidents because they've been drinking heavily - 25 per cent of all hospital emergency admissions are drink-related. And there's all those working days lost through drink-related absenteeism.

There is such a long list of adverse consequences of our drinking culture that I have no idea why on earth the government has liberalised our licensing laws. Most doctors and scientific experts, and many police officers, warned against any extension of opening hours.

During my 46 years working in liver research we have seen exciting breakthroughs in transplantation, treating hepatitis and the ability to reverse alcoholic damage to the liver using drugs. Yet just when we should be seeing fewer cases of liver disease, people's lifestyles mean we're seeing more.

I fear that extending licensing hours will lead to an increase in all the detrimental effects of alcoholism. Young people's habit of drinking to excess is a particular concern - these people are the chronic alcoholics of the future. Opening hours should be tighter not slacker. People will say that's limiting personal liberty but the freedom to drink has to be balanced with the many harms alcohol does.

Scandinavia got its drinking under control by putting up the price. A gin and tonic in a bar in Sweden costs about £20, so people there don't drink so much. We should be going down that road in Britain.

There should be notices on alcohol bottles and cans telling you how many units you're having, reminders about safe drinking levels and warnings that if you go above them you may damage your health.

I'd like to see more government resources going into education, prevention and treatment and strategies like the appointment of alcohol support nurses, better treatment facilities and greater funding for voluntary organisations which help drinkers.

Ministers have announced initiatives for cancer and heart disease but not for drinking problems. Heavy drinking is thought to be self-induced, so resources aren't going into it.

I hope that George Best's demise will lead to more attention being given to alcoholism. He was a much-loved figure and I hope the country will respond to his death by looking at why people drink excessively.

· Professor Roger Williams treated George Best from 2000 and supervised his care around his liver transplant in 2002. He is the director of the Foundation for Liver Research.