http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43948081
First I've heard of this but it sounds like a very good idea overall, I'm interested to see how it pans out in terms of public health.
As a (currently dry-binging) alcoholic, I heavily approve.
Looks like something that will screw over the poor to me. I can bet you poor alcoholics won't stop because of this and they'll find they can't make rent or pay the electric bill because they're still spending it on booze.
Thats a lot of assumptions there pal.
If its unaffordable it wont pull people into it in the first place.
Also take cigarettes in Australia as an example, yes people will still be hooked and will be worse off, but it will also drive a HUGE amount of people off of it.
interesting that its an actual minimum price rather than a tax.
But I'm sure many will be saved from the horrors that is 3L of 8% chav cider for £5.
And yet again people's shocking lack of personal responsibility negatively affects the sensible majority.
I'm pretty sure any macroeconomics class will teach you that price floors are just as shit as price caps in that both will create black markets for their respective product as well as doing fuck all to help those that it's originally aimed to help.
Given how large an issue binge drinking is in the UK generally and Scotland specifically, I'm not sure we can lay much claim to a sensible majority where drinking is concerned.
I know the NHS has been demanding this move for years, the SNP is just the first party to actually implement it. Probably foolishly, because however necessary it might be, it's going to tank their popularity.
This wouldn't help a guy like me it'd only inconvenience me. I'd never get to enjoy a nice dry, lemony vodka gimmick under that system, not on my salary.
I only really drink spirits, 50p a unit on a regular 40% 70cl bottle will make the minimum price £14, which doesn't seem like a price increase at all. I doubt even Woods 57% rum will increase from its regular £25, though I'm a little peeved I'm never going to see it on offer again.
Aye, spirits are barely affected by it because the evidence suggests that most of our alcohol problem is focused on beer/cider rather than spirits and wines.
Of course, what I suspect will happen now is that binge drinkers will now shift to the spirits...
Welcome to Estonia
The government raised taxes on alcohol, so some smart guy bought an old border toll station and made it into an alcohol shop, located in Latvia. Prices are sometimes closer to 2x as cheap and they simply sell estonian export beer and liquor. From my home, it is ~100km and when you buy more than 4 cases of beer, you are already in profit, including fuel. Yesterday my total was 104€, a few cases to bring home and a few for friends too. Easy.
There's more than one of those places. I don't do the booze rally myself since I don't drink, but I've heard that there's places at least at the coast, and there's the Alko1000 market in Valga that I laughed at just because of how hilarious it is on the map.
https://i.imgur.com/uIw6Koa.png
Booze is already stupidly expensive in the UK and yet there's no shortage of drunks rolling around the main streets at breakfast time. Price change won't do fuck-all when the drinking culture promotes drinking until you can't stand and then behaving like a true "lad" by getting in a fight, churning in a Maccies and then passing out in the middle of the street. Fucking cattle.
Yeah, our ex health minister sure thought this through. Then kept claiming that buying cheaper alcohol in Latvia is unpatriotic. Fucking retard.
Luckily, there are talks to drop the implemented taxation already. Hope it passes.
I think it effects bottles more than cans so... i dont think it will make the biggest difference? I'll have to look at the actual physical shop prices.
Watching neds fight while trying no to spill their bottles of sauvignon blanc is going to be absolute poetry. If anything, we get a higher class of knobhead.
You hardly ever create a black market 1:1
Though alcohol is fairly inelastic it doesn't mean people don't shift what they drink, so it could still be possible that this helps iunno I haven't really seen any good studies on the effects of alcohol taxes (since I'm not aware of any other places that have tried a straight price floor in alcohol, we'd have to go with taxes.)
While I don't believe that a huge black market will be created, I'm struggling to think how any problem will actually be solved.
The alcoholics will just end up poorer and will resort to stealing or begging to buy it.
The youth will probably just turn to spirits or illegal drugs instead (I mean, at this point buying a £10 pill is both more economical and will get you more rekt).
And regular people will just end up poorer, will perhaps may drink slightly less as a result, but these aren't the people the regulations are trying to target.
There are several systematic reviews and meta-analyses (1, 2, 3) looking at the relationship between alcohol taxes/prices and outcomes such as alcohol consumption and its various health effects. Much of the literature supports the idea that increased taxes decrease consumption, and also decrease public health impacts. Price elasticities varied quite a bit but overall beer/cider was found to be the least elastic, spirits the most, and wine somewhere in between. A more detailed analysis of consumption patterns in the UK found different patterns but still reported negative elasticities.
This policy is likely based on a recent modelling study that looked at various alcohol taxation policies and concluded that the minimum unit price policy would be most effective at curbing drinking in low-income heavy drinkers whilst having the least impact on total alcohol spending by higher income groups. Heavy drinking affects those in low-income groups more than those in higher income groups so this policy should, in theory, achieve greater equality in health outcomes.
Yeah, if I recall correctly, this is why it was the solution that the NHS was endorsing.
See the last study I linked above. The lowest-income heavy drinkers are likely to cut their alcohol consumption to offset the increase in price, while those in the highest-income group can absorb the price increase and continue drinking as much as before while spending more. In this respect it is a regressive tax, but because heavy drinkers in low-income groups are more negatively affected by alcohol-related health issues than heavy drinkers in high-income groups, it's more equitable in terms of health outcomes.
I may have gone to that exact alko1000 yesterday. There's another one in Ikla, very similar on map. There's also a Superalko nearby, another company based on Estonian capital, but they aren't blatantly on the border.
The fuel thing, though, the prices have gone through the roof lately. It is cheaper in Latvia and has even been cheaper in Finland recently.
All in all, higher taxes hasn't stopped me from drinking, but has lost my government some revenue. 2016-2017 they lost ~10 million euros, 2018 probably even more but I can't find the news on that.
You know what screws over the poor way more? Massive health issues from alcoholism.
There will always be cases where individuals get harmed more than they get helped but these sort of taxes typically are very effective at reducing consumption.
I'm concerned. It will only be a year before most Scots are homeless, they'll be forced to spend too much money on alcohol now and won't be able to cover their rent. This needs to be repealed and a better solution designed.
My province entirely controls the price of alcohol all throughout it, and heavily inflates the price
Let me tell you - it doesn't turn away the poor from drinking, it will just make them even more poor.
that's an anecdote
Citation? Every study I've come across supports the idea that higher prices cut consumption.
its not an anecdote, its a claim without evidence - he just needs to provide the evidence, probably correlatory data to be fair, that shows poor people losing wealth/money/whatnot after the price of alcohol rose
While they do end up spending more, they also consume less to offset some of the price increase.
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