Bye Bye cheap booze?

[Syxx]

How is it a start though? What does jamming the prices up start towards and how is it supposedly going to progress?

It seems like a lazy way to appear as if they're combatting alcoholism, and a good way to potentially reduce the amount of money coming into the country.

Raise the prices of the 'cheap' spirits. See if that makes a difference. If it doesn't, raise the prices of beers etc. At the absolute least, they're going to be making more money to alleviate the asinine amounts of money spent to treat alcoholics.

[pANDAS Radio]

"More than 1,500 Scots die from alcohol related problems every year."

If that's true, it's fucking terrifying.

That's 0.0003% of the population btw.

[LesMTS]

Aye, but for everybody? Does that figure even cover the people that don't drink?

Aye, it will. But 11 pints a week as an average doesn't sound that surprising to me.
A sizeable proportion of the population will regularly double that.

[Syxx]

It wasn't really that part i was highlighting Gill, i should have took that out.

A sizeable proportion of the population will regularly double that.

You don't think that's a fucking scary prospect?

[LesMTS]

That's 0.0003% of the population btw.

Should be 0.03%

You don't think that's a fucking scary prospect?

Twenty odd pints over a week? I could count a number of people I know who comfortably meet that.
It's excessive and a bit concerning, but I wouldn't say it was a surprise.

[I'm Your God Now]

I've had about 15-16 pints this week already, so it doesn't seem that surprising to moi.

[LesMTS]

I've had about 15-16 pints this week already, so it doesn't seem that surprising to moi.

You only need to go for a couple of pints after work every day and sink ten over the weekend to hit twenty pints.
And that's only if all you're drinking is beer.
How many people have a glass of wine or two with their tea every night and go pubbing/clubbing at the weekend too.
Or how many people might go for a pint or two every other night, drink wine with a meal on the remaining nights and go out for beers/shots/spirits at the weekend?
Doesn't take much to add up to twenty pints (or equivalent) a week.

[I'm Your God Now]

You only need to go for a couple of pints after work every day and sink ten over the weekend to hit twenty pints.

That's what I was thinking. Go out on a Friday night and go to the pub for the football on a Sunday, for example, and you can easily top 11 pints.

[Bunnylingus]

A lot of people I know do drink 2 bottles of spirits a week.

I'm totally with Gill here - people who have problems with alcohol will just find other ways of getting it, this doesn't properly address any of the issues behind it and will probably just cause more problems, particularly for the economy, in the long run.

[poprock]

I’m okay with setting a minimum price on cheap booze. I’m not clear on who is proposed to benefit financially from the increase though: retailers, distributers or manufacturers? Or would the increase be in the form of a tax? Making it an extra tax on bargain booze might not be a bad shout. The profit could be fired in to the NHS, in theory.

Acually, thinking a bit more, it shouldn’t matter. This measure should really just knock out the bottom end of the market. If your cheap-ass vodka is only a few pennies less than a low-range brand like Smirnoff or Glen’s, then nobody is going to buy the cheap-ass one any more. Manufacture and supply of the bargain basement shite would dry up and the market would return to the way it looked five years ago.

[Syxx]

I really don't see how this could be a bad idea. It might end up futile in the end, but that doesn't make it a bad idea. What drawbacks do you have to this, apart from 'people moaning cause drink costs more'?

[Bunnylingus]

Economic ones. People spending more money on booze when it could be spent elsewhere - what Gill said about Glens, and local companies who could face going bust because of it.

I'm not saying it's an AWFUL idea - I'm just saying that there are probably much better ways of going about it.

[poprock]

I’m not convinced by the economic arguments. This measure is designed to reverse a recent trend, not something that's entrenched in the country’s economy. The massive availability of ultra-cheap booze is a new development. Cans of Tesco Value Lager, for one example.

[Bunnylingus]

See, it's more the night time economy I'm thinking of.

If this effects pubs and clubs too, people will be less likely to go out.

[ladysavage]

This will also penalise Scottish companies like Glen Catrine Bonded Warehouse, makers of Glen's vodka, by increasing the price of their product by over £2.50 and placing it in the same price bracket as many firms based in other countries.

£2.50 for 70cl? a litre? Vodka doesn't cost that much to make really