Plans for minimum alcohol price

[Fop 1]

Plans for minimum alcohol price

Alcohol misuse is a major problem for the NHS

 

The government's top medical adviser has drawn up plans for a minimum price for alcohol which would double the cost of some drinks in England.

 

Under the proposal from Sir Liam Donaldson, it has been reported that no drinks could be sold for less than 50 pence per unit of alcohol they contain.

 

It would mean most bottles of wine could not be sold for less than £4.50.

 

A Department of Health spokeswoman said the government "had not ruled out" taking action on cheap alcohol.

 

Sir Liam's proposal is aimed at tackling alcohol misuse and is set out in his annual report on the nation's health.

 

 

This would hit the pockets of hard-working families who are already struggling to make ends meet

David Poley, Portman Group

 

The BBC's health correspondent Adam Brimelow said Sir Liam's recommendation would not automatically become government policy.

 

But he said Sir Liam was influential and had advocated a ban on smoking in public places long before it became law.

 

Our correspondent added that recent research from the Department of Health had shown that a minimum of 50 pence per unit of alcohol would reduce consumption by almost 7%.

 

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "We have not ruled out taking action on very cheap alcohol - it's clearly linked to people drinking more and the subsequent harm to their health.

 

Industry opposed

 

"Any decisions we make will take into account their wider economic impact during this difficult time.

 

"It would be wrong to make sweeping changes without consideration of all the options suggested by our research published in December.

 

HAVE YOUR SAY

 

The way forward is to tackle the causes of alcohol addiction - raising the price would simply exacerbate the problem

 

Ian Cheese, London, UK

Send us your comments

 

"We need to do more work on this to make sure any action we take is appropriate, fair and effective."

 

Carys Davis of Alcohol Concern said that setting a minimum price for alcohol would help deter youngsters from binge drinking.

 

She said: "It tends to bring up the prices of the alcoholic drinks that are drunk by harmful and very young drinkers, whereas you'll find that moderate drinkers tend not to really see a negligible financial effect.

 

"So for the price that Liam Donaldson is suggesting - which is 50 pence per unit minimum - moderate drinkers will spend on average about eleven pounds eighty per year more on their alcohol and they'll see a consumption drop slightly as well"

 

But the Portman Group, set up by drinks manufacturers to promote sensible drinking, said it opposed the plan.

 

Portman chief executive David Poley told The Sunday Telegraph: "This would hit the pockets of hard-working families who are already struggling to make ends meet, and it would not deter those people who drink to get drunk."

 

Earlier this month the Scottish government published plans for a minimum price per unit of alcohol, which is strongly opposed by retailers and the drinks industry. No price threshold was set.

 

Setting a minimum price could have a particular impact on "own brand" or "value pack" beers and ciders.

 

Sir Liam's report is due to be published on Monday. The proposals as they stand do not apply to Wales or Northern Ireland.

 

Hospital admissions

 

Ministers are determined to tackle the problem of alcohol misuse, which impacts on health, crime and anti-social behaviour.

 

The NHS bill for alcohol abuse is an estimated £2.7bn a year.

 

The most recent figures show hospital admissions linked to alcohol use have more than doubled in England since 1995.

 

Alcohol was the main or secondary cause of 207,800 NHS admissions in 2006/7, compared to 93,500 in 1995/96.

 

The figures include hospital admissions for a specific alcohol-related condition - such as liver disease, but also admissions where alcohol is a contributory factor but not the main cause - such as falls due to drunkenness.

 

Of hospital admissions in 2006/7 specifically due to an alcohol-related diagnosis, almost one in 10 were in under 18 year olds.

 

The number of alcohol-related deaths in England has doubled since the early 1990s to nearly 9,000 a year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7944334.stm

 

"Health" taxes, the very finest sort of tax.

[Tom 14013]

It wont make a difference to some people - the very people they are trying to protect in fact.

[Park Life 71]

"Governments have to start thinking long-term because individual lifestyles are the biggest threat to public health in the 21st century. Finding more effective ways to help people to change their behaviour will take more than three-year or four-year programmes that sound brilliant politically and look good in the media."

 

Britons from lower social classes die younger, smoke more, are more likely to be obese and have higher rates of infant mortality than people from the highest social classes, according to official figures. These health inequalities have widened despite the Government's ambitious target to reduce the gap by 10 per cent by 2010.

[Andrew 4857]

this was covered on BBC new a few weeks ago and it came across to me that they will only be "minimum pricing" what are basically "working class" drinks while it said that certain wines and...I think she actually put it "higher class whiskies" etc won't be

[luckyluke 2]

this was covered on BBC new a few weeks ago and it came across to me that they will only be "minimum pricing" what are basically "working class" drinks while it said that certain wines and...I think she actually put it "higher class whiskies" etc won't be

 

Bollocks - 50p a unit won't affect the price of a pint. It will affect the price of wine though.

[Andrew 4857]

this was covered on BBC new a few weeks ago and it came across to me that they will only be "minimum pricing" what are basically "working class" drinks while it said that certain wines and...I think she actually put it "higher class whiskies" etc won't be

 

Bollocks - 50p a unit won't affect the price of a pint. It will affect the price of wine though.

 

like I said they won't be putting it in place on certain wines and such

 

ie no pricing increase anyway

[LeazesMag 0]

I'm all for clamping down on supermarkets selling cheap beer. My favourite local shut down before Xmas and I want it to open again --- generally though I'm not a drinking in the house person, I much prefer to go to the pub for a pint too.

[Ketsbaia 0]

Does this include drinks bought in a pub? Because I think my local would have to give away the turgid, watered down piss it calls 'lager' away.

[Park Life 71]

This democracy lark is getting out of control.

[Kitman 2207]

This democracy lark is getting out of control.

 

The public health authority never tires of telling people what to do and how to live their lives. The British government never tires of making laws against things and taxing ordinary citizens for their own good.

 

Meanwhile criminals will smuggle in cheap booze and the people who apparently have to be protected from themselves will buy it. The rest of the law abiding populace who don't end the evening in a puddle of their own piss will however have to pay. And the extra money will go to finance Britain's miriad foreign policy failures and military overspending.

 

Wish I still lived in the UK.

[Fop 1]

This democracy lark is getting out of control.

 

The public health authority never tires of telling people what to do and how to live their lives. The British government never tires of making laws against things and taxing ordinary citizens for their own good.

 

Meanwhile criminals will smuggle in cheap booze and the people who apparently have to be protected from themselves will buy it. The rest of the law abiding populace who don't end the evening in a puddle of their own piss will however have to pay. And the extra money will go to finance Britain's miriad foreign policy failures and military overspending.

 

Wish I still lived in the UK.

 

 

That's the thing, there's a lot of people lining up to claim a link between "cheap booze" and some "drunkenness epidemic".

 

 

 

1. they are doctors, politicians and the usual moral hand wringers, none of which are actually qualified to determine IF there actually is a link between the two.... there was a liver specialist on the news, now I'd trust him to know about liver damage, but what does he know about market forces, social trends and all the myriad things that would go into making such a "link"? Nothing at all. He's a doctor, but in that context he may as well be a bin man, yet he was spouting on about this link as if he'd just spend the last 5 years running a team actually researching it.

 

 

2. I'm far from sure there is any link at all, night life isn't all that different to what it was 15+ years ago, just some pubs are open longer. Yeah kids are more out of control with booze, but that has little to do with price as such, but rather their attitudes and lack of fear/respect of authority.

 

kids have always drank, but in the last 10-15 years it's gone from hiding in the bushes behind the bus shed to do it, to walking down the street openly drinking and thinking they rule the world - there are LOTS of things that need to be changed to fix that issue, but cheap booze is not one of them (actually enforce bans/fines on shops selling alcohol to under age people, reinforce the 21 year old selling rule for take away alcohol, and actually have some meaningful punishments for kids caught behaving in an unacceptable way).

 

 

 

 

 

And of course the biggest canard is that UK booze is still pretty expensive (and they won't save local pubs by putting in minimum alcohol prices, they need tax breaks and such on public houses to stand a chance).

[Guest alex]

I only buy dear stuff anyway.

[Fop 1]

First they came for the smokers

I did not speak out as I was not a smoker

Then they came for the drinkers

I did not speak out as I was not a drinker

Then they came for the "junk food" eaters

I did not speak out as I was not a "junk food" eater

Then they came for the motorists

I did not speak out as I was not a motorist

Then they came for me

And there was no one left to speak out for me

[Guest alex]

Martin's are funnier.

[Fop 1]

I only buy dear stuff anyway.

I don't drink, but I still see it for what it is (just like smoking and I don't smoke either ).

 

You know the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand palaver? It reminds me of that, lots of groups seeing an opportunity to force agendas that have little real link to the action/problem in question.

[Park Life 71]

it's one of those issues that is easy for Govt to fiddle with and make like they are doing something. The bigger trickier and more critical issues are kept out of the public gaze, mainly because the Govt has failed in regard to nealy all of them.

[Rob W 0]

they'll sling the prices up in the budget, claim cross party support and "health reasons" - they don't want to do it TODAY is the only reason.....................

[Fop 1]

He said it was important to recognise the concept of what he called "passive drinking" - the damage done to innocent parties from others boozing.

 

"England has a drink problem and the whole of society bears the burden.

 

"The quality of life of families and in cities and towns up and down the country is being eroded by the effects of excessive drinking.

 

"Cheap alcohol is killing us as never before." - Sir Liam Donaldson

 

 

"Passive drinking" () buzzword - check.

 

Alarmist rhetoric based on nothing - check.

 

Not in the next Labour manifesto, but slipped in the back door anyway - check.

[Kitman 2207]

Grrrrr. I bet Sir Liam Donaldson is like Father Jack Hackett behind closed doors, the difference being that he can afford to pickle his kidneys with top quality continental booze. 'Passive drinking'? What a load of shizzle. Are we meant to be absorbing large quantities of alcohol in the home through osmosis or something? It's a meaningless sound bite, no doubt dreamt up in the gents' club over a large brandy and a cigar......

 

People like Sir Liam are professional miseries, sermonising and preaching against every one of life's pleasures, tarring everyone with the same brush of excess. And stupid lazy journalists dole out this crapola so they don't have to go and out and find real news to write about. So we all get bombarded with useless information, which comprises the latest medical fad dreamt up by lunatics on the research gravy train and which is usually discredited at a later date. This of course makes not the slightest difference to our behaviour but manages to add to the general air of hypochondria and depression that seems to permanently hang over the British media.

 

No doubt he feels the job of pissing in people's ashtrays is done so he can get on with spitting in their drinks. After that he'll shit on their monosaturated fish and chips. And him and his ilk will keep on bitching and moaning until we all live long, miserable joyless lives, stuffed into run down retirement homes where we can be filled with low fat tranquillisers and left to rot in our own shit. Great.

 

Bastard.

[Fop 1]

He uses the smoking ban as an example of the "massive success", which is strange as there are no health benefits yet (at best we're looking at 10+ years - assuming it does make more people stop/not start).

 

 

Yet ignores that the smoking ban has already had "massive" and clear negative effects too - not health-wise, perhaps, but certainly economically as the supposed and much trumpeted and heralded wave of people that "didn't go into pubs because of smoking", completely and utterly failed to materialise.

[Park Life 71]

He uses the smoking ban as an example of the "massive success", which is strange as there are no health benefits yet (at best we're looking at 10+ years - assuming it does make more people stop/not start).

 

 

Yet ignores that the smoking ban has already had "massive" and clear negative effects too - not health-wise, perhaps, but certainly economically as the supposed and much trumpeted and heralded wave of people that "didn't go into pubs because of smoking", completely and utterly failed to materialise.

 

This nanny stuff is ridiculous.

 

Adults should be allowed to indulge whatever vice they want whenever they want.

[Kitman 2207]

He uses the smoking ban as an example of the "massive success", which is strange as there are no health benefits yet (at best we're looking at 10+ years - assuming it does make more people stop/not start).

 

 

Yet ignores that the smoking ban has already had "massive" and clear negative effects too - not health-wise, perhaps, but certainly economically as the supposed and much trumpeted and heralded wave of people that "didn't go into pubs because of smoking", completely and utterly failed to materialise.

 

This nanny stuff is ridiculous.

 

Adults should be allowed to indulge whatever vice they want whenever they want.

 

Exactly. The whole point of vices is they are bad for you. It's what being an adult is all about. Instead you get some jumped up Colonel Bufton-Tufton type telling you what's good for you. Every time one of these spokesmen appears on the telly they should be pelted with rotten fruit and sent packing like the humbugs and hypcrites they are.

[tooner 243]

He uses the smoking ban as an example of the "massive success", which is strange as there are no health benefits yet (at best we're looking at 10+ years - assuming it does make more people stop/not start).

 

 

Yet ignores that the smoking ban has already had "massive" and clear negative effects too - not health-wise, perhaps, but certainly economically as the supposed and much trumpeted and heralded wave of people that "didn't go into pubs because of smoking", completely and utterly failed to materialise.

 

what is the ban for smoking over there? Here the ban is for restaurants and bars/pubs but the private clubs (i.e. fraternal orders, legions etc.) can get around it because the people behind the bars and waiting tables are volunteers and therefore not covered by worker compensation which was the real catalyst.

 

personally I think it's not such a bad idea, i enjoy not smoking a pack and a half of second hand cig's while I'm out and about, and my clothes don't reek like an ashtray, I'd have to say they probably have the "smoking" ban in the right places IMO

 

as far as raising taxes on booze, in BC we already have some of the highest prices in Canada and there is another raise coming for hard liquor.....about $1.30 / liter. It's funny to me that wine is cheaper in the UK than it is here ( i live in the Okanagan, wine country for fucks sake), damn government!!!!

[Fop 1]

He uses the smoking ban as an example of the "massive success", which is strange as there are no health benefits yet (at best we're looking at 10+ years - assuming it does make more people stop/not start).

 

 

Yet ignores that the smoking ban has already had "massive" and clear negative effects too - not health-wise, perhaps, but certainly economically as the supposed and much trumpeted and heralded wave of people that "didn't go into pubs because of smoking", completely and utterly failed to materialise.

 

what is the ban for smoking over there? Here the ban is for restaurants and bars/pubs but the private clubs (i.e. fraternal orders, legions etc.) can get around it because the people behind the bars and waiting tables are volunteers and therefore not covered by worker compensation which was the real catalyst.

 

personally I think it's not such a bad idea, i enjoy not smoking a pack and a half of second hand cig's while I'm out and about, and my clothes don't reek like an ashtray, I'd have to say they probably have the "smoking" ban in the right places IMO

 

as far as raising taxes on booze, in BC we already have some of the highest prices in Canada and there is another raise coming for hard liquor.....about $1.30 / liter. It's funny to me that wine is cheaper in the UK than it is here ( i live in the Okanagan, wine country for fucks sake), damn government!!!!

 

 

Ban is everywhere (including work vehicles and such), except the House of Commons bar (I know, I know you really couldn't make it up).

 

They are even talking about banning it in some private dwellings.

 

 

 

The economic problem is none of the people that said they would go to pubs if there was no smoking actually started going to pubs when there was no smoking, and a lot of the smokers stopped going which left less people out and so other people then stopped going too.

Add to that the financial pressures pubs are under anyway, and the credit crunch and basically there's a mass cull of British Pubs now going on (39 pubs closing each and every week to be precise - 2000 in the last year with 20,000 job losses).

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

Bulmers is making White lightening 5.5% instead of 7.5% to promote sensible drinking, so I think we can all stop worrying now.