Off Topic Booze

Jocks are getting battered.

Scotland has introduced a minimum unit price for alcohol - the first country in the world to do so.

Retailers must now ensure a unit of alcohol is not priced below 50p, in a government bid to reduce the high number of alcohol-related deaths in the country each year.

It means a standard 750ml 13% bottle of wine cannot be sold for less than £4.88, a 700ml 40% bottle of whisky for £14 and two litres of 5% cider for £5.

The Scottish government has warned retailers there will be no period of grace and that if rules are broken licences could be removed.

 

I've opened a warehouse in Berwick selling Tennants and whisky.
Will rake it in

I never had the SNP down for implementing such a Tory policy.
Social engineering with spinoffs

 

Ha, won't the jocks just come across the border and then take it back. This policy sounds flawed.

 

This will kick in soon for England and it's about time. It should be illegal, never mind price going up.

It causes serious health issues, criminal behaviour, unwanted babies and serious accidents. If the government can't and won't stop people drinking, then they're doing the right thing by making it more expensive so generally people won't be able to consume as much.

Meanwhile cannabis which is curing people from life threatening illnesses and giving certain people their life and independence back, is illegal and showing no signs of that changing.

This world has been upside down for a long time, there's a long way to go yet.

 

Have you joined the church?

 

Cue some liberal ****er saying how you are penalising the poor so they can't drink themselves silly

 

Nah the alcohol/cannabis argument pisses me off even more now. As soon as cannabis is legalised, I'm very rich.

 

But thats nothing to do with banning booze though.

 

It's just that alcohol and cannabis have always been 'enemies', so I take my frustrations out on alcohol.

 

Further evidence of social cleansing...just saying.

 

What exactly does that mean?

 

Those prices don't sound that bad.

 

Yeah but they all drink the 9% lager up there! That's when it becomes expensive.

No more cheap white cider for the street drinkers basically.

 

It just seems to me another way of shaking the general public loose of their change.

It will probably come here too.

Problem in the country?

Make the public pay for it.

All this means is those with a problem who now can't afford it will make their own, buy illegal stuff and drink liquids they definitely should not.

 

So you increase the price of booze, along with increasing over decades the price of cigarettes, and not forgetting football etc. When you do that, what class of people does it most affect financially, who actually are we trying to restrict from buying the alcohol?

 

How can someone who advocates the legalisation of cannabis want to see alcohol banned?

That’s blatant hypocrisy and is akin to the argument that cannabis is a gateway drug and leads to drug abuse. Only a small amount of people who use alcohol are addicts, and whilst I think that there’s an unhealthy relationship in the UK to alcohol, banning it, is ridiculous. As is thinking that price hikes will alter anything tangible btw.

 

Absolutely agree. However, I hasten to add, personally i would agree with any future possibility of legalising cannabis. But like all substances whether it be alcohol or cigarettes, and whether it be cannabis in the future, the government has always been quite happy to take the taxation on it, which is exactly the reason Canada is legalising cannabis, because of the tax revenues that can be gained. However, it appears they still want to take the taxation on it but restrict the affordability to a certain income level, because it certainly will not affect me, and as Luv has said above, the prices don't sound that bad, hence why i used the words social cleansing, some will tart it up in the words called 'health' - but people should be left to lead their lives how they wish, ie much the same as Saf chooses to smoke cannabis, but it not legal to be bought on licensed premises within the UK.

 

Ding ding ding we have a winner @CBD saffy

 

Completely agree, and I’m not against legalisation and control of cannabis sale and production either. It’s Govts job to educate not legislate when it comes to matters of personal choice.

Prohibition and the decades long ‘war on drugs’ shows that bans simply don’t work, they just create a black market, as the demand will always be there.

 

Research shows that the biggest drinkers are those who can afford to drink
They will still be able to afford to drink
Alcoholics are a small proportion of those who drink; raising prices won't cure their alcoholism. They will lead even more unhealthy lives because they'll have less money for food, heating etc
Similarly, those on lower incomes who drink will have to make choices. Continually raising the price of cigarettes doesn't seem to have reduced smoking among the government's target groups so why will it be any different with drinking?
It's possible that some might choose to cut down their alcohol intake because of the price rise, but everything about the drinking culture and people's habits doesn't lend much encouragement to that argument.
The net effect of the price rise is to give people who drink less disposable income; why is it assumed that they will spend less on drink as a result as opposed to spending less on other things or going into debt?
If people were sensible enough to make the choices the government wants in the first place, there wouldn't be a need for this kind of policy