To think the Scottish government have got it all wrong about minimum alcohol pricing?

[rhondajean]

Right I'm just back from Italy on holiday.

A large bottle of peroni is 1 euro 50 in a side shop. Carafes of wine are five euros in restaurants, you can buy half decent bottles of wine for four euros. Spirits yes are pricey but wine and beer are so much cheaper than here.

I saw two drunk people all holiday, one was english and one was German. In an all inclusive hotel, I didn't once have to que for a drink at the bar.

So am I wrong in thinking that the idea of making us pay more for alcohol isn't really going to help and instead we need to find a way of effecting cultural change? Because people are just going to flood in cheap black market booze like they already do with fags aren't they.

I read a theory it's a Nordic thing - to do with the weather and genetics - sorry if this has been done to death but seeing the prices really got me thinking we have it all wrong somehow.

I thought there maybe was confusion about whether the law is already in fore or not?

ForCe

YAB a bit U.

Yes it needs to be a culture change. But that is something that is incredibly hard to implement. I believe minimum pricing works in other countries?

And as I understand it, it's not increasing the price of "normal" alcohol, just the really cheap stuff like White Lighning.

The big group this will affect, other than homeless, alcoholics is young people. They all drink gallons of cheap cider and cheap vodka when they can't afford Buckfast so this could help there.

Remember how everyone was against the smoking ban, that has worked out pretty well...

Because its outrageously cheap, so support for the new law.

Everyone was against the smoking ban? Really? I must have missed that, seeing as I and the majority of my friends were totally in favour.

sheffield university study into the projected impact of minimum pricing has a good easy to read executive summary at the start: www.shef.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.156503!/file/scotlandjan.pdf

I agree with the comments about drugs.

People I have known to take cocaine and things like mdma said they did it as it was cheaper than a night of drinks.

Wow I've just found a university of wisconsin study that alleges smoking bans increase deaths from drunk driving.

Totally unrelated sorry!

Are people really naive enough to think that making something more expensive to buy in a shop is going to make people want it less? Or is it possibly more likely to become more desirable due to it?

It the only source of alcohol for scots was shops in Scotland, I might see more of a case for it.

I suppose on the plus side it might make drinking in our dying pubs seem slightly more attractive again.

I am old enough to remember Boots selling everything you needed to make your own wine/beer, down to decoratively rustic labels. I think that industry will crop up again, and more dangerously. It's already growing. Wine and beer are relatively harmless if home-made. My mum made her own out of all kinds of stuff - sparkling nectarine wine was a favourite, 11% by volume but because of no sulphites there was no hangover unless you drank 2 whole bottles. With spirits it's a dangerous game - methanol contamination happens easily and is deadly.

I know culture change is enormously difficult to achieve, but on the whole I think minimum pricing is going to create an underground industry (not to mention reviving the old booze cruises!) and people will die as a result.

And on the pubs side - I would like to see the stranglehold of the big breweries broken and more free houses coming in, preferably serving food. Real ale is making a comeback - much of it not that high in alcohol but big on flavour. That's what we need to get people drinking in pubs again, and drinking not to get shitfaced but because they really appreciate good brewing.

MY dh used to do duke of edinburgh years ago and i can remember going into boots for meths for the stoves and having to sign the book I had to say why i needed it , I think the alcohol has been taken out of it though,

Drinking and eating together too pointy.

YANBU. The price of cigarettes has rocketed in the last few years but people still find the money, somehow, if they want to smoke.

The kind of people involved in the booze culture they want to get rid of will find a way, just as drug addicts find ways to afford the drugs they want/ need, at the detriment to other areas of their lives or to other people's

One of Scotlands biggest exports and moneymakers is whisky.

This minimum pricing lark is going to mean that the distillers are going to get even less for their produce and probably go out of business.

The big supermarkets already command up to 90% of profit on what is sold.

This is going to line the pockets of the wrong people.

It's such a knee jerk reaction to a long term issue and is going to benefit Scottish economy -0%

Sparkling nectarine wine?

How do you do that please? salvates

I read a really good article recently that was saying that legislation and regulation will never maintain standards in the absence of personal morals (this was particularly with reference to tax evasion and banking). I think this is a similar situation, as long as drinking and being drunk are glorified no regulation, price, etc will stop it. What society needs is a beefing up of standards but that is unlikely to happen.

There's no way to talk about 'beefing up standards' without sounding like a raving anti-Jeremy Kyle benefits basher.

I know what you mean though. There's a lack of social awareness nowadays. Or social awareness is geared toward the self rather than the public at large.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like that and I'm really not that way inclined at all, I even enjoy a drink here and there, but I do sometimes begin to despair at some aspects of life now and wonder what the world is coming to (Shit, I'm turning into my Nan!)

Haha i know that's not what you were going for but thought i'd acknowledge it before someone launched in and said it

Time for Gransnet? Lol

I'm 26 and regularly find myself doing a 'Pffft youth of today' speech!

I'm the same at 27

I think it's very wrong. It's basically saying rich people can drink if they want but poor people can't. This is not the way to curb excessive drinking.

I totally agree with it 100%.

Got to try something, society's attitude won't change overnight but there is something very very wrong when it is cheaper to buy alcohol than soft drinks.

That's just because the pubs overcharge on soft drinks. It's not the price they are 'worth'.

This shouldn't affect the export of Scottish whisky. The price the distillers charge isn't changing, and only goods sold in Scotland are affected, so exports should be fine.