Research has suggested a 45p minimum price could reduce drinking by 4.3%, potentially saving 2,000 lives within a decade. This was why the idea had such strong backing from the medical profession.
May, the former health secretary Andrew Lansley, and the education secretary, Michael Gove, have opposed the proposals on grounds that the impact on living standards would be unacceptable.
The former shadow home secretary, David Davis, claimed that evidence in Europe, where alcohol was cheaper but consumption lower, showed that culture was more important than price.
Very dodgy research \”suggests\” while a statement of the clear and obvious truth is a \”claim\”.
Don\’t worry about editorialising in the news reporting, eh?
As I’ve said before, bring it on. The inevitable result will be an increase in the black market trade in alcohol. Forcing down prices & denying the State of taxes. A win-win situation.
There’s an interesting parallel between UK/Spain in cannabis pricing. In both countries use is widespread. UK has tough enforcement. Spain has a much lighter touch. Small quantities are ignored & over much of the country it’s possible to grow the stuff in the open with plenty of rarely frequented locations to do so. Yet contrary to obvious logic, street prices are higher here than in UK cities. I’d suggest that’s a direct result of the UK’s much more aggressive black market due to its tougher enforcement.
potentially saving 2,000 lives within a decade
Ha! Mid-Staffs NHS trust can kill em faster than that.
Hi Meissen, perhaps that should be rephrased as: now we know what the peg rate target is for the NHS.
But of course, the basic problem is the Utiliatarianism. It’s the whole idea that somebody (the powerful) can make a judgement as to the common good. Once you start arguing about the potential outcomes, you’re already in a dark place. You basically can either have a society based on rights, or a society based on outcomes. One or the other. They’re incompatible.
As a “rights kinda guy”, I’m just not interested in a felicitous calculus. Engaging in debating the potential outcomes means you’ve accepted you don’t have rights, you’re just allowed to do whatever dwindling list of things the State (or whoever) thinks are “good”.
We opened a delicious Albarino last night. I did enjoy my medicinal glass, as recommended by my cardiologist. If the price is forced up I’ll have to ask him to give me a prescription on the NHS.
“you
It really doesn t like inverted commas within double quote marks, does it? Peculiar aversion. Positively Fraudian.
“you*re just allowed to do whatever dwindling list of things the State (or whoever) thinks are
Depends on how you see yer average punter, Ian. All this sh*t is intended to stop folks doing what they want to do. Doesn’t change what they want to do, does it? The market will supply. I just find it amusing the harder they bear down with their controls, the more efficient those markets become. Hell, if dope was legalised & fell into the hands of the pharmaceutical industry the price would put it out of the reach of ordinary stoners.
And black markets are wonderful things. Once the supply chains are established they can handle anything.
Whoa! Success! Is there a prize?
There is indeed a prize. You are now entitled by an ancient royal law to go into any butchers’ shop within the city walls and correct his signage.
@Ian
Valueless, then. Spanish butchers don*t do apostrophes. Or suet.
I agree with IanB, to my horror. We are fighting on the wrong ground if we even engage on this basis.
Dodgy research and editorialising are irrelevant: the point is, fuck off, I’ll drink what I like.
This really is worth 20mins of anyone’s time if they really want to think about the role alcohol and coffee* play in society
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015p86z
“Social anthropologist Kate Fox argues that we need to re-learn much of what we think we know about the effects of alcohol.
Alcohol does not make us disinhibited, violent or anti-social, she says. Many cultures around the world, some of which drink more than we do, have none of these problems. So what causes them here?
Kate Fox, whose research centre has conducted numerous studies into the social and cultural aspects of alcohol for the government, the drinks industry and others, argues that it is down to what we believe alcohol will do to us.
And while she cites science and sociology, it is her conclusions about how we fight the harm currently caused by our mistaken beliefs which are so far-reaching. Out should go the approach which says alcohol causes bad behaviour, she says, with a focus instead on taking responsibility and normalising alcohol. ”
*Teaser – once you’ve listened you’ll understand
Henry George ,of fierce-type Land Value Tax fame, is none too popular round here for getting too close for comfort on house prices but even the most right-on redistibutionist would flinch at his solution to the booze problem viz. lower the price by removing all taxation and ceasing the licensing of bars and low joints.His reason :booze being so cheap nobody would want to push it ;nobody could make money from supplying drink alone and would have to supply food and entertainment to stay in business. Although you hear plenty about his land tax nowadays (which BTW is possibly less practicable than taxing only increases from here on as per the previous JS Mill scheme),you never anything about his scheme to defeat the power of a rent- seeking drinks industry.
I’m puzzled as to why he thinks that would work for booze, when it doesn’t work for any other untaxed commodity.
(although the puritan left do tend to completely ignore the massive regressiveness of sin taxes…)