04.01.11
Bargain booze
Many healthcare professionals want the Government to go further in its plans for a minimum-unit price for alcohol.
They see first-hand the damage drinking does to people’s bodies, the state of A&E departments on Saturday nights and the amount of money that could be spent instead on more ‘deserving’ diseases and injuries.
But the Government is unlikely to take any more than baby steps on the issue, because to be tough enough to have an impact, any restrictions would also hit millions of voters in the wallet when they are feeling the pinch.
The gradual restrictions on smoking show how health professionals and politicians working gradually can get what they want, and they mostly have the public with them. But drinking is a much more embedded social activity than smoking in this country, and the backlash would be much fiercer – there are indirect victims of drinking, of course, but people’s health is not ‘passively’ affected by nearby drinkers.
Many people drink a little but do not binge or get into fights and will feel very hard done by to pay more because of the irresponsible drinking of a minority. Even if they agree with measures to improve the nation’s health, when it starts to affect them, that can all change.
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