A study of heavy drinkers consuming hundreds of units of alcohol a week found they were buying cheaper drink than most other people. One study author said it was "likely" a minimum price for alcohol, as proposed by the Scottish government, would cut these problem drinkers' consumption.The piece goes on to throw a multitude of numbers at the reader about unit price and average unit price without fully explaining where the figures come from.
Respondents paid an average of 43 pence per unit of alcohol - less than the Scottish average of 72 pence.Also it should be noted that the people in the study form a very small percentage of the population
The drinkers also bought most of their alcohol from off-sales, where they paid an average of 34 pence per unit - which is lower than the 40 pence average price paid per unit of alcohol in off-sales in 2007.
And 70% of the alcohol drunk by patients in the study had been sold at or below a price of 40 pence a unit.
The people questioned - who are all undergoing treatment for alcohol problems - drank an average of 198 units of alcohol in a typical week, but some were drinking two or three times that amount.Someone drinking 198 units per week is consuming, on average, one bottle of spirits per day, every day. These are not normal drinking patterns and affect a very small percentage of the population indeed. Raising the price of alcohol that would affect the majority of the population because of the behaviour patterns of a minuscule minority makes no sense.
No BBC story on the subject would be complete without a quote from a fakecharity and this one is no exception
Dr Bruce Ritson, chairman of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP), said the new research "makes an important contribution to the debate and adds to the evidence base on the likely health benefits of minimum pricing".Would that be the same SHAAP who
received start-up funding from the Scottish Government for three yearsand work together with Alcohol Focus Scotland to campaign for the introduction of the minimum pricing of alcohol?
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1 comments:
"The people questioned drank an average of 198 units of alcohol in a typical week."
There are only 168 hours in a week so these people will never even start sobering up.
As you say that is rather more than a bottle of spirits per day; probably 4 X 1/4 bottles of cheap vod since that is the 'cheapest' way of topping up pissed ( believe me, been there done that, sometimes for weeks on end in an era now long gone ). All you need do is scrounge, beg, borrow or steal about £3.50-£4.00 every 6 hours or so and hey presto your next hit.
Again, as you say, these are not the 'middle class problem drinkers' as ridiculously defined by HMG, they are Mental Drinkers so why should public policy be determined by their behaviour anymore than Driving Rules be based on the behaviour of Boy Racers ?
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