Minimum Alcohol Pricing

[MontyVeda]

High prices work real well with Heroin don't they

...

Thing is, Heroin is cheap as chips these days... ok maybe not as cheap as chips, but like many street drugs, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than it used to be. When i was student in the late 80's, and ounce of cannabis resin would set me back £90... these days the same product is around £50. Back then, you had to be a yuppie or rock star to afford a smack habit, these days, it seems like half the people i used to know can afford a smack habit on benefits, and benefits ain't gone up that much!

As for the minimum price per unit... it won't affect my drinking as I already pay more than 45p... but i don't drink White Lightening and the like.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Worked with all the cigarette smokers didn't it, taking it from £1 to over £6 yeah right

Alan...

 

[simon.r]

When i was student in the late 80's, and ounce of cannabis resin would set me back £90... these days the same product is around £50.

You sure? http://www.idmu.co.uk/canprice10.htm

 

[marinyork]

Worked with all the cigarette smokers didn't it, taking it from £1 to over £6 yeah right

Measures for smoking have had some success. At the population level smoking rates have declined in much of the western world as have death rates for certain things. But there were many other contributory factors to that - I don't think anyone would pretend it was solely down to price.

This is a measure at population level to try and nudge drinking habits so we get slightly fewer levels of things like serious liver problems and even deaths (unfortunately that's going in the wrong direction and it'll probably be a case of slowing the rate of increase down). I would go much further than minimum pricing and look into things like advertising, regulations on where it can be placed in shops and even try and rein back the number of shops that are allowed to sell alcohol and how much.

 

[MontyVeda]

You sure? http://www.idmu.co.uk/canprice10.htm

yes, I'm sure.... but seeing as 'the internet' disagrees, i must be wrong, or 'the internet' is being ripped off.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Thing is, Heroin is cheap as chips these days... ok maybe not as cheap as chips, but like many street drugs, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than it used to be. When i was student in the late 80's, and ounce of cannabis resin would set me back £90... these days the same product is around £50. Back then, you had to be a yuppie or rock star to afford a smack habit, these days, it seems like half the people i used to know can afford a smack habit on benefits, and benefits ain't gone up that much!

As for the minimum price per unit... it won't affect my drinking as I already pay more than 45p... but i don't drink White Lightening and the like.

I think my clumsily made point was that addicts don't make informed choices based on sound financial thinking.

Not saying you're an addict for smoking good ole resin

 

[Andrew_Culture]

yes, I'm sure.... but seeing as 'the internet' disagrees, i must be wrong, or 'the internet' is being ripped off.

If you had taken that one step further it would have been one of my favourite quotes of the week - "The Internet gets ripped off when scoring"

 

[marinyork]

I think my clumsily made point was that addicts don't make informed choices based on sound financial thinking.

Not saying you're an addict for smoking good ole resin

Minimum pricing is not really so much an attempt to combat very serious addiction. It's a very crude tool to try and get rid of a few absurd offers that encourage binge drinking and trying to nudge the large group of people that call themselves 'moderate' drinkers (which is a completely different definition from what the GMC think is a 'moderate' drinker) from consuming a bit less and therefore over the entire population get slightly fewer cases of early liver disease and so on that we're heading towards like a speeding TGV.

 

[MontyVeda]

I think my clumsily made point was that addicts don't make informed choices based on sound financial thinking.

...

you're absolutely right.

 

[wormo]

We, the country, have got to do something about the issue. This is merely a starting point. It will take years to change the culture of drinking. We need to change attitudes such as needing to drink heavily when going to football, rugby, concerts etc. My mates don't invite me to the cricket anymore because I don't see the need to drink a skinful starting at 11 am and continuing all day. I just want to watch the cricket.

 

[MontyVeda]

Minimum pricing is not really so much an attempt to combat very serious addiction. It's a very crude tool to try and get rid of a few absurd offers that encourage binge drinking
...

I agree, some of those filthy chemical brews are far too cheap!

 

[Deleted member 26715]

But again the 'sensible' public is screwed because of the lowest common denominator, I don't drink a great deal, but I do like Whisky/Whiskey I have seen a standard bottle go from £9 to £14 in 3 years

Why should I have to pay for somebody else's irresponsibly, it's gets more of a Nanny state each week.

Alan...

 

[oldfatfool]

Can anyone clear up where the extra revenue is going?

Is the minimum sale price a legal point that supermarkets can't sell under or are the government levieing a 40p tax on each unit?
Either way the coffers will swell from the extra tax revenue.

If anyone in power was *really* bothered about our health, the enviroment or anything other than the tax £, they would find a better way to promote absolution than upping the price.

Same story with Petrol/ Diesel,
Same story with smoking

Lets face it if everyone stopped using their cars and started cycling for every journey under say 10 miles, the government would soon find a way of taxing cycling.

Of course the other side of the coin is George Orwell was only 30 years out!!

 

[slowmotion]

Why stop at booze? How about a minimum price of £1500 for TVs to discourage the thoroughly unhealthy habit of slumping on the sofa for hours on end?

 

[BigonaBianchi]

I dont do alcohol so it wont affect me at all, but I think it's a good idea, perhaps not drastic enough actually. I suspect the gov had to sit on a fence here because they know that the huge majority of voters out there are closet alkies tbh....personally O would have slapped a massive tax hike on booze same as cigarettes or higher, and directed evry penny of extra revenue at the NHS...and yes I would also make those who present at hospital with clearly self inflicted illness caused by alcohol or smoking pay for treatment..especially those idiots who get plastered on a saturday night and end up in a&e as a result of an alcohol related injury. Why should good self respecting closet alkies tax payers pay for those idiots amoungst society who arnt even able to be responsible for themselves let alone others.

Perhaps another way to help reduce th eproblem would be to raise the legal age you can buy alcohol? Up to say..ooh.. 90 perhaps? ...and also restrict the type of outlet allowed to sell it...so cut out supermarkets and petrol stations for example and leave only pubs and off licences.

in fact why we are at it why not shoot drunk people in the street on sight and hang them up on stakes on village greens as a warning to any who choose to follow the devil?

I dunno...I jus tdont understand why as a nation we cant all just behave sensibly for once and have fun without abusing ourselves and others around us. I suspect the majority do just that, shame your average chavvy oik is a insecure loser who actually thinks it's cool to fall over and vomit.