Minimum prices could ease drink problem

Published on Wednesday 24 March 2010 20:09

Ken Robertson from Diageo selectively quotes many figures in his rebuttal to Lesley Riddoch's article in support of action on the price of alcohol (Opinion, 23 March).

The cheapest alcohol is overwhelmingly drunk by heavy drinkers. While he argues that minimum pricing has little effect on consumption, he neglects to mention that raising the price of the cheapest alcohol has a selective effect on the heaviest drinkers. The more heavily people drink, the more minimum price will reduce their consumption. Why would a responsible company not support a measure that does that?

He claims consumption in Scotland is falling, but the survey data he quotes is out of line with the sales data which the government has purchased from market research companies. This shows alcohol consumption in Scotland has not changed over the past four years and has stabilised at a level not seen since the first legislation to limit hours of sale in 1914. Our consumption has soared since the 1970s and so have our rates of harm.

He says that action on price would harm the whisky industry and the Scottish economy. The Gin and Vodka Association tells us that in 2006 vodka sales surpassed those of whisky for the first time in the UK. Since then whisky sales have continued to fall while vodka sales have continued to rise.

Thousands of jobs have been lost in the pub trade due to the cost-driven shift to home drinking. It doesn't look to me as if the retail environment has been any better for whisky or the economy than it has been for the nation's health.

Mr Robertson welcomes the development of more treatment and support for people with alcohol problems. Those of us involved in treatment know that it does a lot of good, but unless there is effective action on cheap alcohol, we will be swimming against a powerful tide.

DR PETER RICE

Chairman,

Royal College of Psychiatrists

Queen Street, Edinburgh

Lesley Riddoch writes an impassioned plea (Opinion, 22 March) for the Liberal Democrats and Labour (though not the Conservatives for some reason) to come on board and vote for more expensive alcohol to tackle the drinking culture which causes so much damage to Scotland. The point she does not address is one that must surely be central to the whole problem. If she looks back, she will find that it is one which has dogged Scotland for centuries. The temperance movement was established to counter the influence of alcohol on the health and wellbeing of the people of Scotland and beyond, but where is it now?

Licensing hours were brought in to control the levels of intoxication among munitions workers on both sides of the Border in the First World War. That seemed to have some effect when measured against the current problems she wishes to be addressed.

The main thing which no-one seems to take into account is the culture that deems it acceptable for people to go out and become utterly foaming-at-the-mouth drunk. If she (and the government) wish to deal with the problem, raising prices will not do it. After an initial shock, normal service will be resumed and sacrifices will be made in other areas of expenditure to fund drinking. Above all, the culture of condoning and celebrating public drunkenness in the media would be a step in the right direction as would reducing the immense amount of advertising and sponsorship paid for by drinks companies.

ANDREW HN GRAY

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh