Scots 'drink a quarter more alcohol' than other Brits

[7zark7]

This will be an incredibly regressive tax. Middle-class folks who put away a bottle of nice merlot a night will be completely unaffected, but those with lower incomes will be hardest hit. The message is that only the affluent should be allowed to drink.

If I were to play devil's advocate, then yes, only the affluent should be allowed to drink as alcohol is a non-essential luxury. Maybe if those on lower incomes and benefits didn't drink, then they'd be that little bit better off…

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

When people are living on sink estates with unemployment levels of 50%+ and in constant despair and hopelessness they tend to drink. Scotland and the north of England have a lot of places like that. Every ideological cut made affects those on said estates more than it does those in the south, which tends to be more affluent (obviously there are also heavily deprived areas in the south). The larger and broader the cuts, the higher the level of alcohol consumption.

Do you see how it is relevant to the story now? One of the reasons the Scottish have higher consumption is because they are some of the hardest hit.

This makes sense.

I'm in the states and it can be like that here. When I lived in urban areas yeah people abused alcohol but in general it wasn't seen as a major issue. Alcohol was expensive in bars and in stores in these places.

When I lived in rural areas in the middle of nowhere that had lots of unemployment and economic hardship all around booze was very cheap in bars, very cheap in stores, and a lot more people drank and abused alcohol and I don't mean just people in their early 20s or college kids. People saw alcohol abuse as a major issue here but as long as you were not passing out and puking or driving drunk nobody seemed to mind.

 

[7zark7]

Minimum pricing alcohol plan facing defeat
22 September 2010

The Scottish government's plans for minimum drink pricing are set to be defeated at Holyrood, despite a last-minute offer to save the measure.

Holyrood's health committee is expected to back a Tory amendment to strike from the Alcohol Bill plans for a minimum price per unit of alcohol of 45p.


Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11381608