Once again, the question of problem drinking and how to remedy it has reared its head in the UK. Not that it ever went away, but last week the Government’s Health Select Committee got together to publish its report calling for minimum pricing for alcohol, so it has come to the fore. Again.
The committee’s report estimated that a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol would save 3,000 deaths a year. Do these “‘expert health professionals†not realise that if people are going to drink excessively, they will regardless of price. Shouldn’t the government be spending money on making it shameful to get pissed every weekend rather than taking the easy way out with a tax per unit? It lacks foresight and it won’t work.
According to the UK Wine and Spirit Trade Association, government statistics show that 7% of the population drink 33% of the alcohol in the UK, so it is these problem drinkers who need to be targeted. Sticking more money on a bottle of wine or beer, destined for the Treasury’s coffers, sticks the knife further into the drinks trade, which is having a tough enough time as it is. It is not much of a vote winner and the latest polls show Gordon Brown, who has rejected the idea of minimum pricing in the past, needs all the help he can get.
However the report also states: “We are concerned that government policies are much closer to, and too influenced by, those of the drinks industry and the supermarkets than those of expert health professionals.” What a load of rubbish. While I may be biased, the drinks industry is bending over backwards to align itself with responsible drinking campaigns – Drinkaware, The Portman Group etc. It is also lining the Government’s pockets with taxes and duty at a time when exchange rates and the recession is slashing its bottom line.
But in the words of Monty Python, we should always look on the bright side of life: Russia is currently being threatened with a state monopoly to curb alcoholism problems. At least we won’t have to go down to the State booze shop to get a bottle of wine.
