Time For Mimimum Unit Alcohol Pricing?

[ToraToraTora]

Just watching dispatches, apparently 50p per unit minimum pricing would save 1000 lives and save £5bn. So what do we think ABers?

[ummmm]

Anyway...it won't have an effect on most people. It's just really cheap booze like white lightening.

[aelmpvw]

''save 1000 lives and save £5bn''

doesn't that work out at £5,000,000 per life?

[Ellipsis]

For the benefit of those who didn't watch Dispatches - you could view on catch-up ...

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#3721403

... or just read the summary ...

It's no longer necessary to cross the Channel to stock up on cheap booze; the local superstore is now the place to head with multipack deals that can work out at less than 70p for a pint of lager.

Whether it's vodka, beer or cider, cheap alcohol is changing the way a generation drink. Rather than head to the pub, 'pre-loading' or 'pre-drinking' is now the favourite way for young drinkers to start a night out.

But there is concern that the wide availability of cheap alcohol may have a darker side. Alcohol-related crime, violence, accidents and disease are costing the country billions of pounds a year.

Antony Barnett criss-crosses Britain, examining how the nation's drinking habits may have changed. He looks at the true cost of cheap alcohol and investigates how the drinks industry have mobilised to fight off government attempts to clamp down on cheap drink.

[ludwig]

nailit // Anyone who abuses alcohol will always find the money just as drug addicts do. //

True, but it's not something that's designed to cure alcoholics by making booze too expensive for them - it's a measure that's designed to prevent people developing a drink problem in the first place.

I think minimum pricing is a good idea.

[royfromaus]

Anyway...it won't have an effect on most people. It's just really cheap booze like white lightening.


It will have an affect on the indoor boozers I know ummmm.

53 pence per can of 440ml of fosters at the moment (tesco) that is way below the proposed minimum. My mates drinking habits go hand in hand with these offers.

When will an alcoholic try to sue a supermarket I wonder?

[ummmm]

Aren't they weak beers though?

[EDDIE51]

supermarkets already sell beer for less than it costs them to buy it, if this was introduced you can bet they would find a way round it and keep selling at below cost price as a 'loss leader'

[nailit]

ludwig
//True, but it's not something that's designed to cure alcoholics by making booze too expensive for them - it's a measure that's designed to prevent people developing a drink problem in the first place. //
You can make it illegal if you want but it wont stop people developing drink problems any more than the illegality of drugs has stopped people becoming addicts.

[royfromaus]

The minimum per can would be 90p under the 50p per unit proposal.


The two mates I'm particularly thinking of will go through almost a crate each. They didn't drink that much when they used to come out to the pub.

£3.70 for a pint or 53p for a can ... it's a no brainer for some people. Personally I wish the trend would reverse and people chose social pub drinking to drinking in the house but it doesn't look like happening.

[ummmm]

£3.70 for a pint? My uncles pub it's £2.50.

[royfromaus]

My local is £2.60.

People can blame the crack down on drink driving, smoking ban etc, but the truth is people haven't stopped drinking they just do it on the cheap now. More alcohol is sold by supermarkets than by pubs now :(

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2674416/Beer-sale-water-World-Cup-deals-mean-consumers-drink-recommended-daily-1.html

[ummmm]

I don't think the smoking ban has done much damage. Not to the pubs I use anyway.

I don't go out that much anymore but I put that down to my age and laziness :-)

[andy-hughes]

ummmm 'The drugs you mention are illegal, Andy, alcohol isn't.'

I understand that - but that is down to cultural history - nothing more.

Alcohol is an accepted part of our culture, the rest of the drugs mentioned are not - but that is the only difference - apart from the fact that alcohol abuse is now also culturally accepted, to the point where huge swathes of the population only judge the success of a night out by the ability not to be able to recall any of it.

[andy-hughes]

royfromaus - 'andy hughes, have you ever been a drinker?'.

Never, I never developed a taste for the flavour or the effect of it at all.

[andy-hughes]

AOG - 'I bet you are a bundle of fun at a party Andy.'

By that do you infer that I stand in a corner looking snootily at people having a good time?

Nothing could be further from the truth. Anything people need a drink inside them to be able to do, I can and will do sober, including dancing on bars, conga-ing, karaoke, you name, it' I will have a go.

I spent my twenties as a night-club DJ yakking and spinning for more than eight-hundred people at a time. My fellow DJ's were always amazed that I didn't need any alcohol to steady my nerves, but no, I DJ'd sober,and was the proverbial life-and-soul.

[dave50]

No! Stop trying to bring in laws to protect people from themselves. If they want to drink themselves to death, let them, who cares?'

[andy-hughes]

dave50 'No! Stop trying to bring in laws to protect people from themselves. If they want to drink themselves to death, let them, who cares?'

I do!

Surely as a civilised society we do our best to protect the vulnerable people who are less able to make good decisions - anything else leads us down the 'survival of the fittest' route, and that would make the world a very evil place indeed.

When I have made bad decisions, I have had cause to be grateful for people who took care of me and put me back on the right path - which in Dave's world would not have occured - and I would not be here.

A little compassion goes a long long way.