COMPARED to my contemporaries and me, subsequent generations drink more alcohol and more frequently than we did.
I am however concerned, with the announcement that England intends to follow Scotland with a minimum pricing policy, that "experts" confidently guarantee that the policy will reduce alcohol consumption by those groups who currently are considered to be abusing alcohol ("Minimum alcohol pricing breaches EU trade rules", The Herald, November 29).
It is difficult to find any evidence to categorically prove that an increase in unit price will result in a direct reduction in alcohol abuse. Expert opinion appears to simply be a guess based on observations that, when the price of alcohol is reduced in countries where it has been prohibitively expensive or where prohibition was previously the norm, that alcohol consumption escalates. I think it dangerous to extrapolate from this that a price increase will reduce consumption when there is no attempt to reduce availability or pay heed to other social factors.
People of my generation have witnessed a sea-change in where and when one can buy alcohol yet this major significant fact is completely ignored. Perhaps the way forwards should be a return to a policy where the sale of alcohol was limited to stand-alone off-licences and current legislation was applied vigorously. Then we could avoid the collective punishment of the poor that is the reality of the minimum pricing policy.
David J Crawford,
Flat 3/3 131 Shuna Street,
Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article