Alcohol fallacies

I have been following with concern the Scottish Government's proposals on alcohol legislation. They appear to be under the delusion tinkering with the licensing laws and minimum pricing will reduce underage and binge drinking.

It would appear that governments' consistent answer to alcohol problems is legislation and taxation, thus appearing to act while increasing revenue. This is a fallacy. Young drinkers will obtain alcohol one way or another, regardless of price. And revenue has been proven to drop with every tax increase. The only people really affected will be those decent, honest folk of limited means.

Little has been said about tackling the root causes of these problems: unemployment, lack of entertainment facilities and the attendant boredom in many areas. Obviously, these would be much more difficult and costly to address, but addressed they must be.

Some legislation is needed, however. It should be illegal for the all-powerful supermarkets to sell alcoholic drinks at below cost price. Such a move might save the few remaining pubs and independent off-licences before the supermarkets take over completely.

PAULA MACLEAN

Carlton Street

Edinburgh

Dr Peter Rice (Letters, 25 March) claims thousands of pub trade jobs have been lost due to the "cost-driven shift to home drinking".

How is this quantified? The price differential between off-sales and on-sales was obvious even when I started drinking around 30 years ago, and if it has increased since then it's surely difficult to extricate other factors encouraging home consumption, most obviously the recent ban on smoking in pubs.

Despite comparisons often drawn between the minimum pricing proposal and the smoking ban, presumably the latter has been detrimental to health, in that it has encouraged home drinking and thus greater consumption due to cheaper prices.

Also, it should be underlined that the smoking ban has had little effect on the proportion of the population smoking, thus the health benefits must be limited, unless the passive smoking of consenting adults in pubs is deemed more significant than the likes of children in the invigorated home drinking/smoking environment.

Of course, the health lobby is now targeting the latter scenario, but I wonder what the next unintended consequences will be.

STUART WINTON

Hilltown

Dundee