[Closed] Minimum Alchohol cost / Nanny state

Good news for dealers.

What, people will be buying smack instead of Gold Label?

Kryton: I don't think £1.08 is an unreasonable price for a large can of stella, that's no less than what I would expect to pay. A fiver for 4 large cans feels about right in my head.

Which is about what strong lager cost when I started drinking aged about 14-15 in the mid-nineties. Pretty sure everything else has got a lot more expensive since then, so booze (from a shop anyway) is very cheap nowadays.

It has some weird effects on pricing. If you artificially drive up the price of the cheap stuff, then the midrange stuff ends up not much more expensive. Hands up everyone who doesn't think that over time shops will increase the price of the midrange stuff to re-establish a gap?

binners - Member

Apparently a large problem is the standing up/falling over drinking establishments selling acid-coloured 'shots' ridiculously cheap. I think it'd impact on that

I used to work in a nightclub that on thursday nights did tequila for 20p a shot, vodka for 50p. "I'll have a pint of tequila and 2 glasses please" being a common order.

(ironically it was the least fighty night we did, because everyone who'd normally get tipsy then pick a fight ended up getting discombobulated and collapsing instead)

Can't tell if this is serious.....

Yip - serious, because those three groups have been shown to have the highest rates of alcohol abuse.

Anyway - back to the bit I mentioned earlier - the vast majority of those under 18 who have been asked say that they drink because it is cheaper than any other option they have for filling their time. Kids have asked for the introduction of minimum price per unit - the least we can do is grant that wish. The kids arent daft - they're a hell of a lot wiser than we were, and a lot harder working too.

Whenever I see the likes of Kestrel Super or Special Brew or White Lightning I always wonder how the manufacturers can justify it to themselves. Of course, the justification is irrelevant next to the profits.

They must know what their target audience is - you don't see many telly ads featuring groups of suspiciously attractive 'friends' dancing around and drinking Kestrel Super do you?

Short of taking out advertising space on stray dogs (thank Sean Locke for the material), I can't think of a way they COULD advertise.

In short, it's pretty easy to identify the problem products - and these would be damaged (rightly) by a minimum price.

Can anyone seriously say that it is curtailing enjoyment trying to make Kestrel Super unaffordable - have you ever even smelt that stuff let alone tasted it?????

Anyone intently staring at there own navel regarding us Brits drinking habits should go for a night out in Finland.

Well I lived in Suomi for a year and never saw the type of carnage I have seen in Newport and Swansea, people got shitfaced but rarely resorted to violence. Just my experience.

Anyone intently staring at there own navel regarding us Brits drinking habits should go for a night out in Finland.

Well I lived in Suomi for a year and never saw the type of carnage I have seen in Newport and Swansea, people got shitfaced but rarely resorted to violence. Just my experience.

Because it's not the booze at all!!
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15265317 ]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15265317[/url]

Can anyone seriously say that it is curtailing enjoyment trying to make Kestrel Super unaffordable - have you ever even smelt that stuff let alone tasted it?????

That's an easy stance to take on whitemiddleclasstrackworld, but it's ostensibly taxing the homeless.

Mrs K has just return from the weekly shop. Windowlene on BOGOFF, go figure...

Mrs K has just return from the weekly shop. Windowlene on BOGOFF, go figure...

Don't knock Windowlene. If's fine if you mix it with something.

A few people have said that it will push up the price of the "acid coloured shots" that the weekend binge drinkers seem to go for.

Will it really ?

Are they really selling them at less than 45p at the moment ?

I realise they need a profit margin, but how much do they currently cost and what would they need to sell for to make it worthwhile ?

They cannot ban beer. It's too easy to make it yourself

What if they ban the sale of Hops and malt extract to individuals?

I've had my problems with drink. Don't touch the stuff now - if I do, it never goes well for anyone.

In my heavy drinking days, I can't say that a minimum price would have ever put me off. If you're addicted to the stuff in some way, you don't really care what it costs - in every sense, financial, emotional, whatever.

I just think the government don't really know what to do about it, 24h licensing was meant to give us a European drinking culture instead of the British binge drinking culture, but that didn't work, so they're now attempting to make it effectively too expensive for poor people to drink - how wonderfully simplistic, because of course it's poor people getting drunk that's the problem isn't it 🙄 nice middle and upper class people, they can be trusted with alcohol can't they? They're educated and responsible and only drink moderately within government guidelines....no silent epidemic of functional alcoholism among the middle classes at all.

But the middle and upper classes can pay for their own rehab and generally keep their problems away from the social workers, so I guess it's not the government's problem if those kinds of drinkers don't cost them money.

Your missing the point Panda, it's not about alcoholics are class distinction. It's about trying to make cheap drink available to the masses, it tells you all in many articles and in the government and health studies.

That's an easy stance to take on whitemiddleclasstrackworld, but it's ostensibly taxing the homeless.

Ha! ha! Nice try, but I suspect you're trying to get a rise out of me there.

Homeless people don't HAVE to drink the likes of Kestrel Super - it's a choice.