Minimum pricing comes in tomorrow ya bas

Most people aren’t that dependent or stupid.

It’s to prevent addiction developing.

Agreed.

50p a unit isn’t completely pricing anyone out of buying alcohol forever, but if it forces some people to buy less, then they consume less and that’s an obvious benefit.

Hence why minimum pricing isn’t the only measure being implemented.

All of those are much more difficult to provide a genuine solution for.

I’d like to see investment too, but the Scottish government website highlights a link between affordability and increased consumption. It might work, it might not, we’ll need to wait and see. The same website states that pricing is part of a longer term strategy, which has other facets such as education.

“The most recent research by the University of Sheffield (April 2016) estimated that the proposed minimum price of 50p per unit would result in the following benefits:

• Alcohol related deaths would fall by about 120 per year by year twenty of the policy (full effect)
• A fall in hospital admission of 2,000 per year by year twenty of the policy (full effect)”

These are just predictions, but when the evidence is there, it seems sensible to at least try it out, especially in a country like Scotland, which has a toxic relationship with alcohol.