Minimum alcohol pricing approved

Legalize drugs and then it would not be a major police problem.

 

Got it in one!

 

Except we'll aw be laying in the streets off our napper

 

No more than usual, I'd hazard.

 

Are there any you wouldn’t legalise?

 

I was thinking that especially when I seen the 40 bottles of vodka per head statistic.

Regarding the rise in all those drugs, does anyone know what the situation has been like world wide?

Can't help thinking of Bitcoin's rise happening at a similar time, it became globally popular in 2013 and a phenomena in 2017.

There's no way all those drugs are available locally, dealers just don't stock that much inventory.

Absolutely not a doubt that a rise in the price of alcohol is going to make folk on a tight budget look for other ways of escaping and the ease of getting it online makes it even more likely.

Another reason it's a naive understanding of society, as was the SNP's attempt to criminalise football fans.

 

Not that come to mind.

 

Has that happened in jurisdictions where (certain) drugs have been decriminalised or legalised?

 

I would decriminalise all drugs; legalise drugs that are beneficial or (relatively) harmless when used recreationally, e.g. cannabis, psychedelics, etc.; and make more destructive substances, e.g. opiates and opioids, available in controlled healthcare environments, where addiction can be treated as a health problem, rather than a criminal one.

How alcohol would fit into that framework is an interesting question, given its current status and how destructive it can be.

 

Certain probably not, but he said all drugs.

 

What would be fair about that? Through the purchase of a bottle of Cristal they are automatically contributing 10x more to the economy for far less harmful quantities of alcohol.

A bottle of Cristal is £180 from what I see.

There is 8.4 units of alcohol in 12% x700ml Cristal. Technically it could cost as little as £4.20 at 50p per unit.

£25 from £180 is tax and duty.


A bottle of Frost Jacks has 22.5 units and costs £3.60. From the £3.60 £2.43 ends up being alcohol duty and VAT.

£1.17 profit per 3l bottle to pay for the making of it and the supply chain?

No wonder people are stuck on minimum wage jobs when the value of their product is next to nothing and nobody could make money from it either as the bottles were nearly always marked up with the RRP.

The stuff is nothing short of gut rot. There was calls to do something about it in other parts of the UK and long before minimum pricing came into Scotland.

You appear to think this is nothing more than a class war when it's really not.

 

Another young lad died in Hamilton yesterday, and a few of friends ill, after taking an ecstasy type substance.

It's the 15-24 year old group that has seen a 78% increase in deaths in just one year.It's already been proven young people have been turning their back on alcohol.

Is there a connection between the selfie generation moving away from high calorie alcohol and moving to drugs for their hit?

 

You think they're not drinking at parties ?

 

Can you not see how it comes across as class war though? The only people who are being really punished are poor. Addicts, including alcoholics, find ways of getting their fix.
Minimum pricing is a thoughtless attempt a to fixing a much bigger societal problem. Proper debate around alcohol is needed, this merely stunts the debate. It is condescending and patronising and while I am not Scottish or live there, that is how the SNP regularly come across. They know better.
There is no evidence that suggests such a policy has ever worked. At best it has made things worse because of the introduction of black market alcohol. All previous attempts, back when it had some merit as a good idea, have ended up being scrapped.

As someone who worked in pubs for years, I was long bemoaning the price of alcohol in supermarkets. In my view, supermarkets shouldn’t be allowed sell it. It normalises it, especially for kids. Seeing dad pick up bread, milk, tea, fruit and 24 cans is not healthy. Properly regulated off-licences are the only way.
Taxes should be lowered on pubs so that we go back to more social drinking. I know I drink more responsibily in a pub. Put 24 cans in a fridge, put me in a mood and I will drink them all. I would never drink 20 odd pints. Put more responsibility on the pubs to ensure people do drink responsibly. I don’t mean mollycoddling with 3-4 units either, people are free to get * if they want. Just make sure that they are ok, physically and mentally.
It is about getting a society and a community back. In Britain and Ireland pubs have always been at the heart of their communities. In 21st century Britain pubs are becoming increasingly middle class. That’s cuntish. They should reflect their areas.

I think these are things that can be done, along with proper education, to improve our attitudes to alcohol. There is far too much preaching and condescension around it. People of all classes and backgrounds like a drink and it isn’t a bad thing, but it does need to be treated with a real respect, by both the drinkers and the law makers.

 

It's got nothing to do with a class war. You shouldn't be able to buy 3l of gut rot for £3.59. That's the bottom line of it.

Why is setting a minimum price of alcohol punishing someone? A large percentage of alcohol fuelled issues are in the poorer areas. They require extra policing and extra medical assistance, but want the source of many of the issues for as cheap as chips. They aren't paying back the cost of what they extract from services.

You argue against minimum pricing, but you argue against supermarkets selling drink?

Minimum pricing was brought it to stop supermarkets selling drink so cheap. They go hand in hand. It's only a few drinks at the supermarket and a few gut rot products that have been hit. Most mainstream drinks didn't even go up.

Most people can control their alcohol consumption and taking away their right to buy alcohol in a supermarket is as patronising as telling others they have to pay more for their Frosty Jack's.

The countries that normalize alcohol and introduce their kids to it have a far better drinking record than us.

The price of alcohol is far too cheap in this country. I've been drinking for 25 years and a lot of drinks barely cost more than they did back then in the shops and supermarkets. The cost of drinking out has gone up a lot in that time.

I've never considered drinking in a pub middle class before. That's really not what I see. The only thing that I see pulling people from their local is more exciting options. People want craft beer, gin, cocktail bars etc. There is still a market for some local pubs and Wetherspoons is as popular as ever.

When I was young the options for eating out and takeaway food was far more limited too. Chippy, Chinese and the Indian. Now the high streets are full of any kind of food you want. There used to be loads of Chinese takeaways and restaurants, but they have faded off too.

A lot of pubs still do really well. A lot of the ones that can't make a living out of it are the ones who have tied agreements and pay far higher prices for their goods. That's nothing to do with government taxation.

 

I think the problem with a minimum price is it's very anachronistic, it's the kind of prevention that people would look to Scandinavia to say how successful it is but in today's world, where there is huge access to other drugs it's completely misunderstanding modern society and is always going to fail.

What if the minimum price was £50 a unit, is everyone going to stop getting high or find a way to escape?

Article from today's Guardian talking about our drug problem here.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/19/scotland-drugs-problem-westminster-policy

 

£50 a unit will do me. 2 hour drive to the boarders, fill my boot at asda and double my cash daily out my back door. Until I'm arrested for drink dealing

 

That's my view on it. My problem with minimum pricing is that it is oversimplifying a complicated problem. This isn't something you can just stick a quick fix on and all will be solved, but those that introduced it knew that. They paid lip-service to the problem and now seem to be ignoring it.

 

There's a few typos in there that I can't be arsed changing. I was between here and a well known * provider at the time...