Last year, at least 36 per cent of emergency room visits to St. Paul's and Vancouver General Hospital for substance abuse were alcohol-related. That number is conservative and just relates to cases where excessive drinking was the cause, Ahamad said. It doesn't include broken bones, injuries related to impaired driving, violence caused by someone who had been drinking or other long-term consequences of alcohol abuse. By comparison, 24 per cent of emergency room visits relating to substance abuse were because of opioids. In Canada, as a whole, there were more hospital admissions for alcohol-related conditions than for heart attacks last year and the cost to the medical system is high, with the average stay entirely caused by alcohol estimated at more than $8,000. - www.cbc.ca