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Minimum pricing for alcohol


derick
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I support moves in the Scottish Parliament to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol  

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  1. 1. I support moves in the Scottish Parliament to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol

    • Yes, I would like to see fewer lives ruined and fewer lives lost to drink
      20
    • No, everybody should be blootered all the time
      29


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It's a good idea in theory, but it wouldn't work. Increasing the price would only mean more crime and more bootleg alcohol.

 

Also, will high prices not just turn the youngsters on to the hard drugs which presumably would be cheaper?

 

We have the dichotomous situation in Britain where we have free healthcare - which is excellent - but it gives us less responsibility for our own actions. There is no incentive not to get blind drunk and pass out on the street, because you'll wake up in an NHS hospital being treated, at no cost to you (other than taxes, but I don't pay tax yet).

 

It's a tricky situation.

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Indeed - it is a touchy subject though because if someone doesn't have the money to pay they will be _____? If the answer is 'treated anyway' then most people will pretend they don't have any money to get this.

 

I guess you could bill them though, rather than upfront cash. If I had to pay for any treatment I needed because of my drinking it certainly would make me think twice, that's for sure, but then again I could quite easily afford a small fee.

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Folk (including kids) drinking on the street corners around where I live tend to be drinking Buckfast, which I think I have heard would not be affected by the minimum price per unit, so it would make no difference to them. And to me, children/teenagers becoming alcoholics is one of the saddest things; those news stories in the last couple of months about young people needing and being denied liver transplants due to their alcohol problems were truly awful.

 

It's very hard to think of something that would deter people who wish to, from drinking too much. Although over the years the campaigns to stop people drunk driving and women drinking too much when pregnant do seem to have had some effect on behaviour (admittedly there are still many who ignore these laws/guidelines) - maybe in time the campaign regarding alcohol and health will help.

 

Has anyone seen any information about whether the increase in alcohol problems coincided in any way with the relaxation of licensing laws to allow more "continental style" drinking?

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Thats another angle - how many "social drinking" adults do you see drinking Buckfast or MD20/20?

 

But, of course, that would just lead to adopting another drink, or if cheap drinks were banned (which seems initially logical) the less well off would just move on to what they can afford etc as already mentioned.

 

Sadly, I don't believe education can do much. It is similar to smoking now - pretty much everyone knows the risks but either ignores them, adopts an "it won't happen to me" attitude, or similar.

 

Very heavy fines for criminal activity when drunk, and charging for medical care directly due to drinking, would seem the only fair solution to the financial aspect.

 

What about a drinking licence? Really no different to carrying ID and in this day and age everyone has a wallet full of cards anyway! (the social embarrasment of "losing your drinking licence" could help the cultural change too..)

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Guest Anonymous

Norway might have a few fighting drunks, but what of the overall health statistics there compared to Scotland?

 

Supposed to be the healthiest country in Europe, although that might have more to do with the climate than intake by mouth. The dietary habits of the average Norwegian shocks me, apart from the fact that they have lost the Viking ability to tolerate salt in their diet And don't get me started on their "no meat" sausages,,,, YUK,, just cholesterol bombs, and yes my partner is on tablets for that. :cry:

Anyway, I'm off to the pub....

Good on ya,,, I'd go to the pub for a pint, but our local pub only opens on Friday and Saturday nights at 9pm for the local fighters, after they've been sitting at home getting piddled on cheap beer and bootleg booze.

And you think Britain's got a problem..... :roll:

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Why not educate the masses?

 

Some people don't want to be educated and at the end of the day it's all down to the choices that you make in life and learning from your own mistakes is it not?

Indeed.

 

It's about catching the ones who MIGHT not want to be educated and saving them. You can't help people who don't want to help themselves.

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Saving people isn’t that what the church was all about and supposed to do.

As if life wasn’t bad enough under labour. Now the SNP want to save you that is

Up until you have voted for Scottish independence then they will screw you just like all the rest.

 

And what I want to know? Is the Scottish Parliament exempt from the Minimum pricing law

Or is it just the voters

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Norway might have a few fighting drunks, but what of the overall health statistics there compared to Scotland? - which certainly has the worst health statistics in Europe!

 

But not the cheapest alcohol prices in Europe; it simply doesn't follow "cheap alcohol = bad health". It's a cultural thing; meddling with prices (or opening hours) won't change a thing, in my opinion.

 

And what about this other measure that has been introduced to reduce drinking - or is that just a "mainland Scotland" measure? I only heard about it from colleagues, who were all complaining bitterly of being prevented from buying a bottle of wine before 10am. So you get up early to do your shopping before you go in to work - and then have to return to the same shop after work anyway, because you weren't allowed to buy the bottle of wine you want to have with your dinner... How is that going to reduce alcohol problems? Other measures seem to be - alcohol only in one part of the shop, so no more special offer end-of-aisle heaps of bottles; asking every customer for ID, no matter how old they are (a 37-year-old colleague was refused to buy a good bottle of port the other day, because of no ID; his partner was also then refused to buy it - although she had ID - because she was obviously buying it for him!!! - and he would then go and get totally pissed on an expensive bottle of port and commit all sorts of crimes... ARGHHHHHH!)

 

Common sense has gone out of the window, I think. I bought alcohol quite easily when I was 15; I drank it, too - even on street corners; and no, I don't have an alcohol problem. I sincerely believe there is a predisposition for alcoholism in some people - maybe it's even a national predisposition (although with our world-wide multiculturalism this is bound to break up these days). That has to be recognised and treated; simply banning alcohol, or making it more difficult to get hold of, won't do.

 

I don't think charging people for alcoholism-related illnesses would change drinking behaviour, either; alcoholism IS a disease - you can't tell people we'll cure your alcoholism, but only if you give up drinking?! Seems a vicious circle, that...

 

For my part - I'll stick to making my own. :P [/b]

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Poteen

 

7 lb of bakers yeast

3 stone of brown sugar

4 lb of treacle

1 lb of hops

 

1. Steep ingredients in 3 gallons of lukewarm water at the bottom of a 40 gallon barrel after steeping fill barrel to three quarter full with cold spring water. Leave in a cool place to settle. After several weeks transfer to your still.

Shane McGowan swears by this recipe......

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Is it too much to ask for you Shetlink Sages to actually look at the evidence?

 

British Medical Association

Myth busting on minimum pricing of alcohol - pdf at

http://www.bma.org.uk/sc/health_promotion_ethics/alcohol/mythbustingminimumpricingscotland.jsp?page=1

 

World Heath Organisation

Evidence for the effectiveness and cost–effectiveness of interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm. pdf at:

http://www.euro.who.int/InformationSources/Publications/Catalogue/20090918_2

 

 

Graphs showing relationship between consumption and harm - including the horrendous mortality rates

powerpoint slides (but they open fine in OpenOffice 3)

http://www.healthscotland.com/documents/3679.aspx

 

go on...go on...you know you want to..TAKE A DRINK!

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