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Minimum alcohol pricing

Cav said:
Like they will spend it on quinoa instead?

Poverty leads to ill health for many reasons as you should and probably do know, but you are so Tory middle class that any excuse to blame the poor for their condition cannot be missed.
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I thought you were brighter than your reply suggests.
Politics are irrelevant.
The SNP are hardly right of centre.
 
When MUP comes in it will have no impact on the price of Buckfast (caffeine laced high alcohol sweet drink) the choice of the ned (whit are you looking at ya c*nt?) fraternity up here.
 
Higher alcohol pricing of the 'cheap' stuff will not stop alcohol purchases. But if the people who were buying this cheap alcohol now buy a little less, well, you will have made a public health impact. A little difference across a lot of people will have a noticeable affect on health (and maybe police, social) services. That has got to be worthwhile.

There is a risk that smuggling will take place, but I am not sure that buying a van load of cheap whatever from Bargain Booze in Carlisle and driving it to Glasgow and selling it from the back of a van to undercut the new pricing is going to profitable.
 
gassor said:
When MUP comes in it will have no impact on the price of Buckfast (caffeine laced high alcohol sweet drink) the choice of the ned (whit are you looking at ya c*nt?) fraternity up here.
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I had always assumed that Buckfast was an invention, for comedy effect, in Rab C Nesbitt. The reality, as described, sounds truly horrible.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Thing is, the Belgian beers, and anything approaching a quality tipple, are already priced above the threshold anyway. This is intended to price the cheap, gut rot alky specials out of the market and I'm in favour of that. Those products only exist to supply the problem drinker market, a cynical and immoral exploitation which should be abhorred, even if you don't think the move will have the desired effect.
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Apart from price and taste, I'm not sure there is any real qualitative difference between 'quality' booze and the cheapy high octane stuff. At the end of the day it is the total consumption of Ethanol which is the major health issue. I believe it is also the case that very broadly speaking, the darker coloured drinks contain more alkaloids which in themselves may be toxic or at least a bit of a 'challenge' to the body. On the other hand, counterfeit drinks, especially spirits, have often been shown to contain very high levels of Methanol (which is lethal) as well as other contaminants.
 
For the proprietors of Buckfast Abbey, Devon, the poor and alcohol dependent in Glasgow and elsewhwere have been a most lucrative market segment.

Daily Record-
Sheriff Alastair Brown said: "There is, in my professional experience, a very definite association between Buckfast and violence.

"Those of us who have practised in any capacity anywhere in the west of Scotland have been particularly aware of that but I've seen it in this court as well - and also in Dundee High Court."

Last year the Scottish Prison Service found that 43.4 per cent of inmates had consumed Buckfast before their last offence despite the drink accounting for less than one per cent of total alcohol sales nationally.
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Sobering, isn't it?
 
Annual profits of £8.8 million. A not inconsiderable amount- guess where it's coming from? clue: not little old ladies with anaemia needing a little tonic drink.
 
Mullardman said:
Apart from price and taste, I'm not sure there is any real qualitative difference between 'quality' booze and the cheapy high octane stuff. At the end of the day it is the total consumption of Ethanol which is the major health issue. I believe it is also the case that very broadly speaking, the darker coloured drinks contain more alkaloids which in themselves may be toxic or at least a bit of a 'challenge' to the body. On the other hand, counterfeit drinks, especially spirits, have often been shown to contain very high levels of Methanol (which is lethal) as well as other contaminants.
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I would also like to know. I am hoping there are, at the least, less additives in quality booze. I suspect a couple of glasses of reasonable red wine is the safest way to enjoy booze. Certainly the most enjoyable IMO.
 
Arkless Repairs said:
...Do they really think "problem drinkers" will drink less? They will eat less and have a worse diet and get in rent arrears etc in order to buy the same amount of booze as before of course! ... A disaster in the making.
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Sadly I think Arkless has a point - in a previous life I worked for 10 years in SIMD decile 1 areas in Fife and to put it simplistically when alcohol/drugs or whatever offer you some relief from misery then they become the priority. Although it may be interesting to see the effect of the proposed universal basic income trial ...
 
I'm not as well-informed as you lot, or smart, but I'm siding with the people that think it will have an impact. Prices go up, sales tend to go down in my experience.
 
According to Brave New World, it's govt policy to want it citizens happy and drugged beyond care. And it makes sense to quietly encourage that whilst finding every excuse to tax the habit AND pretend that you're doing that, and hiking prices, for the good of our health.
Win win, esp if 'we' are so drugged that we cannot work this out.

Occasional rumours that govt is considering the 'wink wink, blind eye' approval of canabis are for exactly those reasons. If you're smashed, you make less trouble. Only reason they don't go the full Monty and legalise it full stop is because they haven't yet worked out how to save face with the middle class daily mail reading canabis haters, whilst collecting large amounts of tax on it's production.

or was that a dream I was having?
 
The Far North said:
I'd be amazed if anyone on here was paying less than the 50p/unit, although Aldi had a perfectly respectable Glen Orrin malt whisky for £12.50 a couple of years ago. Checking the mysupermarket website says it is currently unavailable, but it shows 70cl bottles of Grants and Whyte & Mackay whisky in supermarkets at £9, and the rise to £14 will certainly hit them for sales.
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Special offer gin etc falls below 50p and when I see it I buy it. I recently missed out on a Gordon's Pink Gin deal in my local Bargain Booze, by the time I landed they had sold out. 70cl at £12 iirc. I used to buy Aldi cider at £2 for 4x cans, it was nice until they changed the supplier, it's now crap. So I wouldn't be at all amazed, a savvy customer will always find the offers. Will it make a difference to me? No. Instead of buying the cheapest offer gin I'll wait until they have Bombay at £20/litre (like this week) and buy that. That's >50p/unit and it's nicer than Gordon's but at £20 only minimally more expensive. Will it reduce consumption? Almost certainly yes. I don't want it to be true either, but I bet it is. Will it stop the old boy on a pension from having his couple of cans of Tesco Value Bitter on a weekend? Sadly probably yes, at least some weeks, and he's not the problem drinker.
 
The problem with Buckfast is the caffeine content. It means drunks don't feel sleepy.
 
stevec67 said:
Will it stop the old boy on a pension from having his couple of cans of Tesco Value Bitter on a weekend? Sadly probably yes, at least some weeks, and he's not the problem drinker.
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Steve, Tesco Value Bitter is 2.1% abv and costs £1/litre https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/250035645

Using the formula below, a can only contains 0.924 units of alcohol, so will be above the MUP of 50p/unit and your old boy on a pension can carry on as before. It really is the white cider and cheap vodka crew that are being targeted with this policy.

The number of UK units of alcohol in a drink can be determined by multiplying the volume of the drink (in millilitres) by its percentage ABV , and dividing by 1000. For example, one imperial pint (568 ml) of beer at 4% alcohol by volume (ABV) contains: The formula uses ml ÷ 1000 .
Unit of alcohol - Wikipedia
 
The Far North said:
Steve, Tesco Value Bitter is 2.1% abv and costs £1/litre https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/250035645

Using the formula below, a can only contains 0.924 units of alcohol, so will be above the MUP of 50p/unit and your old boy on a pension can carry on as before. It really is the white cider and cheap vodka crew that are being targeted with this policy.

The number of UK units of alcohol in a drink can be determined by multiplying the volume of the drink (in millilitres) by its percentage ABV , and dividing by 1000. For example, one imperial pint (568 ml) of beer at 4% alcohol by volume (ABV) contains: The formula uses ml ÷ 1000 .
Unit of alcohol - Wikipedia
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Not quite.
You get 4 cans for £1, so it's 25p for 0.924 units, or 27p a unit. The old boy's on tea and Hobnobs, his watery beer is now twice the price. It's just an unfortunate corollary, booze has been getting cheaper in real terms since I started drinking it illegally some 35 years ago. I remember getting Star Bitter at 50p a can in 1983, it was about the cheapest available. Plug that into an inflation calculator.

Edit - just checked. A litre of Bombay is on special at the local offy, £20. That's 40 units, 50p a pop. That's the new minimum price for any 40% spirit. I bet I can buy a litre of 40% spirit for £15 if I trawl the supermarkets every week, there is indeed a few quid to be made smuggling the stuff from Newcastle to Edinburgh a Tranny vanful at a time.

Further edit - 1983-2016 is a 3x inflation hike, almost exactly. So the can of cheap bitter in a corner shop cum offy should be £1.50 in 2016. Anyone paying that for cheapo 3.5% bitter? No, thought not. Likewise a gallon of petrol (!, remember them?) was £1 and should now be £3. It's actually 4,54 x £1.20, or £5.45.
 
stevec67 said:
Not quite.
You get 4 cans for £1, so it's 25p for 0.924 units, or 27p a unit. The old boy's on tea and Hobnobs, his watery beer is now twice the price. It's just an unfortunate corollary, booze has been getting cheaper in real terms since I started drinking it illegally some 35 years ago. I remember getting Star Bitter at 50p a can in 1983, it was about the cheapest available. Plug that into an inflation calculator.
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Your right, I hadn't calculated on the 57p/litre figure.
 
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