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Minimum alcohol pricing

Iceland has achieved a remarkable reduction in substance (incl alcohol) abuse in teenagers. It goes beyond price effects and education, but look at the results.

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Iceland banned 13-16 year olds being outside after 10pm in winter and midnight in summer. They gave £250 per child vouchers for sport activity classes/entry. Cannot buy alcohol under age 20. All very sensible but could the UK impose and enforce such policies ?
 
Probably the worst piece of legislation I've heard of in years! 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! Or of course start making illegal hooch that could make you blind... Prohibition never works. A disaster in the making.

Then there is the whole "nanny state" argument.... If people want to get pissed on cheap booze then who the hell are the SNP to try and stop them. Outrageous!

ScoGov policy tends to be evidence based rather than dogma driven. There is evidence from elsewhere in the world that this is effective.

It’s worth a try. The legislation has a sunset clause should it not work.

From memory all parties in the Scottish Parliament backed it
 
Iceland banned 13-16 year olds being outside after 10pm in winter and midnight in summer. They gave £250 per child vouchers for sport activity classes/entry. Cannot buy alcohol under age 20. All very sensible but could the UK impose and enforce such policies ?
Of course. It can do anything, if it really wants to. In the UK we have tightened up massively on underage drink sales. As a kid of 16, obviously underage, I used to buy drink in supermarkets and get asked "how old are you?" "18" I would reply, that was that. I never produced an ID. This just does not happen now, the police even have kids of (just) 18 going into off licences on sting operations to check ID policy. You don't check, note is taken for your next Licence Renewal visit to the Magistrate. Don't do it again now, will you? ID U25 was unheard of 30 years ago, we would have laughed at it. It's now the norm.
 
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.

For the sake of clarity Shona Robison is the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport and not the dept you mentioned.
 
wacko said:
Iceland banned 13-16 year olds being outside after 10pm in winter and midnight in summer. They gave £250 per child vouchers for sport activity classes/entry. Cannot buy alcohol under age 20. All very sensible but could the UK impose and enforce such policies ?

After MUP has a go at our appalling record on alcohol this approach will have to be seriously considered, unless MUP has greater effect than I imagine. Anyway there are parts of towns and cities all over the country that would welcome a curfew for under 16s. In addition I remember thinking the smoking ban wouldn't work in Scotland, but from day 1 it has been adhered to and welcomed.
 
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.

Maybe we just remember what we want to remember.
Back to the OP, in Scotland the 50p/unit won't effect the drinkers of a decent scotch...it's already at that price. It only affects the drinkers of cheap booze who are the young and the poorer drinkers. Anyone of them within reach of borders towns will just go south to buy their booze, and the rest? If we assume that man 'a' is drinking his limit each week, say 20 units as a reasonable guess, then that will cost him £10. Now it costs him what? £7 0r 8? Who can't find £2.00 if they want to? Kids? Fine, that's good then. And if it cuts excess boozing also good (tho I don't like the principles behind this kind of government intrusion, but)... Half effective then. Maybe. Reluctantly :)

ah...just worked out that a 2Litre bottle of supermarket cider is going to treble in cost! OK. Hmmmm
 
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.

It's been widely reported that the cheapest alcohol currently on sale in Scotland comes in at around 18p/unit. Increasing this to 50p/unit is over an 150% rise. A 70cl bottle of 37.5% ABV spirits will have a minimum price of £13.13, a smaller but still significant rise over the current prices of the cheapest offerings - Tesco's cheapest 70cl 37.5% ABV vodka, for example, is currently £10.

Of course, a bigger price intervention would have a bigger effect, but basic supply and demand, plus actual evidence from previous price rises of similar goods, strongly suggests there will be an effect. Given the health impact of alcohol consumption, this policy will save lives.

I tend to agree that education and having the government keep the cash would improve the policy. However, the Scots don't have the devolved powers for the latter, and it is more evidence, were it needed to convince the cynics, that their motives are true - they are doing this to improve the health of their citizens and it is not an excuse to increase tax revenues.

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.

Spot on.
I was fully aware of the danger the cancer causing cigarettes I was smoking were doing to me in the late 60s. As were all my fellow smokers of my acquaintance.
 
For the sake of clarity Shona Robison is the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport and not the dept you mentioned.
Gassor you're pedantry is most amusing. You need to acquaint yourself with the structure and functions of Scottish Government a bit better than your search engine seems to be allowing.

For anyone interested in a summary of the evidence base for and the background to the legislation as well as its final hurdle being removed by the Supreme Court-

https://news.gov.scot/news/alcohol-minimum-unit-pricing-to-go-ahead
From the horse's mouth as they say.
 
There is no link to the judgement itself, but I bet the Supreme Court simply said the proposed legislation was not ultra vires for the Scottish Parliarment.
 
Gassor you're pedantry is most amusing. You need to acquaint yourself with the structure and functions of Scottish Government a bit better than your search engine seems to be allowing.

Dec I have no idea what you are objecting to. Not only did you spell Ms Robison's name incorrectly, you gave the poor gal a fictitious department.

If I were a mere pedant I would have mentioned your erroneous spelling of the word 'you're' in the first sentence above.
 
Spot on.
I was fully aware of the danger the cancer causing cigarettes I was smoking were doing to me in the late 60s. As were all my fellow smokers of my acquaintance.
But cool people were smoking on TV and in most films back then.
Turn on any TV soap and half the show is spent in a bar. You wonder how half the cast are meant to afford their consumption and don't get cirrhosis. It is the lazy scriptwriters way of giving actors something to do with their hands
 
No, worse than that, and widely available in England, and exactly the kind of reason I'd support the legislation here:

http://groceries.iceland.co.uk/frosty-jacks-original-apple-cider-3-litres/p/38932

22.5units of alcohol in 3litres of 'white cider'.
£3.59.

Under 16p/unit; that's all sorts of misery, right there, all the way through.

Good spot. £11.25 in Scotland soon then. Effectively removed from the market because no-one'll buy it at that price.

It looks pretty disgusting, although my inner Homer Simpson (we all have one, don't we?) did mutter, 'Mmmmmm, ciiiider...'
 
My name is Mullardman and I exceed the Guidelines.

Is it killing me? Who knows?

I've never beaten my Wife or kids, or even so much as lost a day at work..
I've never been arrested for a 'drink related' or any other 'incident'.

I neither condone nor condemn alcohol consumption.

I just condemn shitty behaviour.

Rather too many 'Saints' on this thread methinks.
 
My brother died because of it but I don't see that as any justification for the nanny state's attempt to punish the poor.
 


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