Executive accused of turning Buckfast into a 'cult' drink for young people

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THE Executive's high-profile campaign against Buckfast is backfiring, critics warned last night, as every effort to demonise it turns the tonic wine into a "cult" drink among the young.

Andy Kerr, the health minister, met the distributor of Buckfast yesterday in the latest in a series of attempts to tackle Scotland's worsening alcohol problem. But his efforts were dismissed as "extremely naive" and offering nothing more than "cheap platitudes" by his political opponents when it emerged that the minister had not asked for specific steps to reduce the cheap availability of the product.

Margaret Mitchell, for the Conservatives, warned Mr Kerr that his campaign against Buckfast might have a detrimental effect on binge drinking. She said: "His approach is also counter-productive because, as far as I am aware, Buckfast does not advertise. Every time a Labour minister singles it out, the drink is given free publicity, which may well bestow cult status upon it."

She said responsibility lay with parents, adding: "Both coalition parties would appear to be fixated on playing the blame game with alcohol distributors and, in so doing, attempting to pass the buck."

Stewart Maxwell, of the Scottish National Party, said the Executive had to concentrate on stopping illegal drink sales to the young, rather than campaigning against individual drinks companies. He said: "Rather than issuing cheap platitudes about the huge social and health costs of Scotland's under-age drinking culture, we need to ask why the Labour and Lib Dem government is letting down our communities and young people by failing to prosecute those responsible for selling alcohol to children."

The campaign against Buckfast has been led by Mr Kerr and Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, who have attacked the tonic wine in public before. Ms Jamieson last year called on the Scottish Co-op to withdraw Buckfast from sale in her Ayrshire constituency.

Ministers believe the sweet alcoholic drink is too cheap and easily available and Mr Kerr convened yesterday's meeting in an attempt to find common ground with the distributor.

He told the company he believed Buckfast provided too much alcohol per volume at too cheap a price, but this was dismissed by Jim Wilson, of J Chandler & Co, who pointed out that many vodka brands provided more alcohol at a cheaper price than Buckfast. Mr Wilson said: "He put his side, we put our side and we left it at that."

The tonic wine is made by Benedictine monks at Buckfast Abbey in Devon and distributed, marketed and sold by J Chandler & Co. Turnover is about 30 million, while some of the revenue is donated to charity, little information is forthcoming about where the rest of the profits go. Yesterday, the monks remained silent about the controversy surrounding the drink.

Buckfast is particularly popular in west and central Scotland. It costs only 5.50 for a bottle of the tonic wine, with an alcohol content of 15 per cent.

It is sweet, cheap, strongly alcoholic and contains a high quantity of caffeine - a combination which appeals to many young men and women (many of them underage) in Scotland.

Buckfast has many nicknames, most commonly "Buckie". It is also known as "Brown Sauce", "Broon wine", "bottle of fight the world", "bottle of beat the wife", "liquid speed" and "Scranjuice". Lanarkshire alone is believed to account for up to 7 per cent of worldwide sales of Buckfast, which has been produced in Devon from a monastic recipe since the 1880s.

Mr Wilson said Mr Kerr had not suggested specific measures he wanted the Buckfast makers to adopt - such as raising the price or reducing the alcohol content - but had merely made it clear he wanted to curb Scotland's drinking culture and he viewed Buckfast as part of the problem.

Mr Wilson said: "You have to look at this in its entirety. We are a small part of a 7 billion industry. We are less than 0.5 per cent of the total alcohol market.

"I said to him [Mr Kerr] 'go down to your local accident and emergency unit and you will find out that these figures are correct and there are all these other alcoholic drinks around'."

The Buckfast representatives raised concerns that their product was being targeted by ministers. Mr Wilson added: "He assured us that it wasn't being singled out and that this wasn't the intention of the Scottish Executive, and we accept that in good faith.

"We listened to what the minister had to say and, hopefully, he took on board what we were saying and some good will come of it." Mr Kerr refused to comment after the meeting at Meridien Court, an Executive building in Glasgow. But an Executive spokesman issued a statement on his behalf reiterating the Executive's view that Buckfast remains a problem.

"This is part of our wider discussions with the alcohol industry aimed at changing Scotland's alcohol culture," the spokesman said. "It was made clear that there were many challenges around alcohol in Scotland and Buckfast was one of them.

"The minister said his concern was about low-cost, high alcohol-by-volume products, not just Buckfast. They agreed that the dialogue should continue."

The spokesman dismissed opposition claims that ministers were missing the real issue by simply targeting Buckfast. "This was not one single meeting. We are having a range of meetings with the drinks industry," he said.

The spokesman confirmed Mr Kerr had raised the possibility of changing the packaging of Buckfast from glass to plastic, but that issue was being raised with the whole drinks industry, not just the makers of Buckfast.

Pupils petition parliament to put up price of alcohol

POLITICIANS agreed yesterday to take up the concerns of school pupils who argued that alcohol was being sold too cheaply.

The children told a Scottish Parliament committee that alcohol can be bought for less than a soft drink in parts of Glasgow.

MSPs on Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee vowed to take the issue forward and will seek the views of a range of bodies, including the Scottish Executive, the Health Service, retailers and alcohol campaign groups and the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, as alcohol taxation is not a devolved issue.

Dilush Pathirana and Roisin Craig, both 16, and James McKee, 17, set out their case when the committee met yesterday at their school, All Saints Secondary School in Glasgow.

Their petition was the 1,000th public petition to be considered by the committee.

Roisin, a fifth-year pupil from Balornock, told the MSPs: "We would like the prices of alcohol to be reviewed, especially in supermarkets and off-licences, with the prices being raised to a more socially benefiting standard.

"We are also hoping this petition prompts a more responsible attitude towards the sale of alcohol, in that alcohol is not made too obtainable by those who should not drink - and that those who do, do so with more responsibility."

She added that she wanted the measures to be extended to bars and clubs and cited the example of a student union handing out free soft drinks "to encourage people to drink more responsibly".

She cited Scotland's ban on smoking in public places as a "positive example".

But she told the MSPs: "Ultimately in Scottish society, we need a cultural shift in attitude to effectively eradicate alcohol-related problems."

JOE QUINN