Letter: Binge solution

This Scottish Nationalist administrations is convinced that the way to stop binge and under-age drinking is to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol (your report, 8 September).

Yet alcohol prices in France, Spain and elsewhere are much lower than here and they do not have our problems with drunks, alcoholics, binge-drinking and associated bad behaviour and crime.

How do our leaders conclude that increased costs will cure binge-drinking? The price is clearly irrelevant.

The legislation will simply punish the innocent with the guilty and make a glass of wine or a pint of lager with a meal all that more expensive for the civilised drinker.

When faced with such problems, our political bosses thrash about, looking for answers in the tax system or in more bureaucracy, rather than tackling the lawless behaviour head on, with tighter police supervision of licensed premises and our city centre streets, backed up by effective punishment of wrong-doers. Drunks used to be arrested as a matter of routine and placed in police cells for the night, to appear for sentence in the morning.

Not so now and, because the situation has been allowed to get out of hand, it will be difficult to reimpose the old rules, but it has to be done.

We simply have to get tough on binge drinkers and the licensed premises which continue to sell them booze when they are already drunk.

George K McMillan

Mount Tabor Avenue

Perth