There has been advertising saying that cigs will kill you since about 1965. Has it taken 50 years for people to start listening?
Minimum alcohol pricing
- Thread starter gassor
- Start date
Cav
pfm Member
So what is your non-political point about the cumulative effects of poverty on health, generally?
Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
We have now entered the quantum level of pfm, where two opposing interpretations can exist simultaneously at the same time. Matter - antimatter symmetry no less, but does any of this really matter?
No I have not been consuming bottles of cheap cider this afternoon before the price goes up
Opposing? yes indeed. Mine is the reasonable view of a man who believes that whilst alcohol remains a legal drug, everyone who wishes to get drunk has an equal right to do so, irrespective of their wealth. I couldn't care less if it affects health and causes early deaths, people know the risks and those factors apply the same to someone drinking Fiery Jack or Chateau Margaux. What people wish to do in the privacy of their own homes re imbibing a substance widely known to have health risks is their own business and has **** all to do with the state... As to people who say it's ok for them to get drunk on posh plonk, but poor people don't have the same right, albeit on foul tasting "cider style drink", well they no doubt have issues with repetitive strain injuries of the wrist...
Why in the name of everything that's holy should it be fine for the well heeled piss head to drink two bottles of wine a night but not ok for the poorest people in society to get the same "buzz" from much cheaper cider?? Maybe we need to put Prosecco up to £40 a bottle to level the playing field....
I had a quick look at the booze on offer in my local Lidl's last night with this thread in mind. There were various ciders available as a 4 pack of cans, no doubt of passable quality, and around 5 - 6.5% ABV for around £2.75. This is light years away from being 3L of Fiery Jack @ 8% for £3.50 and yet even this four pack would go up to £4.40 I believe. This is nothing less than a tax on the poorest drinkers, whilst those who can afford decent wine and malt whisky can carry on as normal... Disgraceful!
Rockmeister
pfm Member
There has been advertising saying that cigs will kill you since about 1965. Has it taken 50 years for people to start listening?
Prices have been rising since before then. Your point is?
Prices have been rising since before then. Your point is?
That your suggestion that declining consumption is the result of recent advertising saying "tobacco kills" holds no water. If it were the result of people learning that tobacco kills, then people would have stopped 50 years ago when people first said it. We all know the stuff kills you. Some of us don't care.
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
The Dept you mention does not exist though there are some similar. The evidence is patchy and not at all conclusive. Afterall we are dealing with people and they are notoriously difficult to predict especially over an issue which is deeply embedded in the national culture. Common sense says there will be a reduction in consumption, but by how much and what other consequences will the price increase have are impossible to guess accurately. Overall I think it is worthwhile to try this approach given the problems we have here and then assess what to do after the 6 year period of the law finishes.
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
The cider is called Frosty Jack but no matter. As long as there is a social impact of drunkenness which detrimentally impacts on those in close contact with the drunk then society has an obligation to tackle this impact. There is a clear correlation between alcohol abuse and violence in the street and in the home. How many battered women are you prepared to sanction for the sake of maintaining a right to get drunk? How much are you prepared to take from the NHS budget to treat cirrhosis of the liver and the related problems for the sake of allowing people to get drunk every night to the week if they want to. Go to an A&E in a city on a Saturday night and you will change your mind.
Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
Frosty or fiery Jack.. whatever its called you're either ignoring, side stepping or don't get my point.... Which is why should all the above in your post be OK/tolerated for rich people but not for the poor? "Beat yer missus up after a couple of bottles of Petrus? Never mind..." "Beat yer wife up after a bottle of Frosty Jack? Menace to society! lock him up!"
Ever been to a bar at a horse racing event late in the day? I rest my case.
Rockmeister
pfm Member
If you were alive for that long, you's know your answer just isn't true. Post war, doctors were still prescribing tobacco as a good sedative, and although there were links to lung cancer in the 70's, the campaign barely took off until the mid 90's when packet warnings and the media really got to grips with the subject. The 70's 'may be hazardous to your health' wasn't really hard hitting was it. 'May be' ???
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
1) You seem to have a problem with some people being well off compared to others and the way you think they are treated in the courts. That is not the issue here.
2) You said everyone had a right to get pissed with all the problems that creates. Do you stand by that assertion?
3) How many of the walking wounded that end up in A&E and threaten and attack staff after getting tanked up on Petrus?
4) What would you do to reduce anti-social and self destructive drinking? Try having a look at what Iceland have done to cut drinking by teenagers.
glancaster
In the silicon vale
I was at an academic seminar earlier this week where South Korean tobacco research was mentioned. In South Korea there have been two distinct, sudden, price rises for cigarettes in recent decades. The professor showed a graph of consumption over time. There were two huge dips at the points of the price rises. To be fair, in each case there is then a partial rebound, to lower than the previous level, yet the pattern is very clear.
No doubt health warnings and other factors also play a part in tobacco cessation, but don’t underestimate plain old supply and demand.
I see no reason why alcohol would work any differently. The Scottish Government says this a harm reduction measure based firmly on academic advice and I believe them. If it happens to save the lives of the poor more than it does the rich, that’s good for the poor.
Kind regards
- Garry
P.S. Richard Doll and others were warning about the health risks of smoking in the 1950s. It’s true it took a while for the message to be get through.
killie99
pfm Member
My problem with the 50p per unit is that it's not going to stop anyone drinking, it's just too low to have any impact. It needs a far more grown up approach to have any chance of changing people's attitude to the consequences of excessive alcohol consumption. Where's the sustained government education campaign to tell drunks what they're doing is unacceptable? Tell people the hard facts about alcohol/health/violence in an information/education program that starts in schools with primary kids. My son is 11 and I've just asked him if they have ever done anything in school about the effects of alcohol - 'no' was his answer. He's had drugs and cigarettes education but zero on alcohol.
glancaster
In the silicon vale
Whilst some people may be discouraged entirely from drinking by the price increase, the bigger impact will be to reduce the quantity of drink consumed. The policy is going to be carefully monitored, but I really can't see how it could fail to do this.
These are sensible points. It's not an either/or though - we can have price controls and education.
Kind regards
- Garry
Come off it. I was born in the 60's. I know from talking to my schoolfriends' parents in the 70s that cigarettes were known to cause cancer. It was common knowledge by then. There was apparently a groundbreaking documentary that went out at some point in the 60's and changed views from the WW2/postwar attitude that everyone smoked. By the time I went to secondary school in the 70's/80's it was common knowledge that smoking killed you, in spite of the fact that the tobacco industry was still protesting that "there was no proof that smoking caused cancer", something we all knew to be bollocks. We even called them "cancer sticks" as we had illicit puffs of them down the canal at lunchtime. So I don't accept for a minute that it "barely took off until the 90's" because by then I was an adult and I could not ever remember a time in my life when it wasn't absolutely common knowledge that smoking killed most of its participants.
Want to know when people first started suspecting tobacco was bad news? When the engineer Brunel, IKB, died, the pathologist discovered his lungs filled with black slime and opined that this was the result of "excessive cigar smoking". This was in 1859.
killie99
pfm Member
50p per unit isn't going to make a big enough difference. Who's intake is it going to reduce? Buckfast drinkers? It's currently £8 a 75cl bottle and it contains 11.25 units so at 50 per unit it doesn't increase in price. Pretty much ALL wine and spirits will be exempt or will increase by a frighteningly small amount. We're into percentage of percentages territory and people are believing the SNP's hype. It's yet another ill thought out policy once you stand back and have a rational look at it.
There are 3 major flaws in the strategy:
50p a unit isn't high enough to make a difference
There is no concerted education program to accompany the rise
The shops keep the extra cash
On the plus side, it'll make it a no brainer to buy decent beer rather than Tennents/Carling as they'll all be the same price.
There are 3 major flaws in the strategy:
50p a unit isn't high enough to make a difference
There is no concerted education program to accompany the rise
The shops keep the extra cash
On the plus side, it'll make it a no brainer to buy decent beer rather than Tennents/Carling as they'll all be the same price.
davidsrsb
pfm Member
When I last visited the UK I was struck how odd supermarkets looked with stacks of cheap spirits at the entrance and by the tills. While the price of food and soft drinks has shot up in the 20 years I have been abroad, the price of supermarket alcohol hardly seems to have moved.
Joking aren't you? Food is for nothing these days. Milk £1 for 4 pints is cheaper now than 1997. I remember, I used to bottle the bloody stuff back then. Meat is cheap, chicken especially. Veg in supermarkets is pennies, sliced loaves 40p. Tesco value lasagne, 80p anyone? All this stuff can't get cheaper unless they roll it into the streets to attract passersby.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Pitch up at one of Shona Robinson's surgeries and warn her she's been sold a dodgy prospectus from an imaginary function within government.