What to do about alcohol prices?
When it comes to drink, drugs and tobacco, I am essentially a libertarian at heart. If someone wants to use any or all of the above substances, they should be permitted to do so – provided their doing so does not impact upon the lives and well-being of others. Similarly, I think people have the right to get intoxicated if they so wish, with the proviso that they don’t drive or fight or whatever.
In the Scottish Parliament, there is a law currently under debate which would add 50p per unit to every single type of alcohol. Left Foot Forward carries some information on the views of the respective Parliaments and the arguments hitherto. This is billed as an attempt to tackle drinking to excess in Scotland, and is framed in terms of the social cost of that binge drinking.
I do not support the argument that the cost to the NHS of repairing alcohol related injuries and chronic illness is necessarily an impact upon the lives and welfare of others. There are any number of things we do to our own bodies that the NHS must subsequently foot the bill for, and unless we’re going after all of them, then we’re not talking about fairness, we’re dealing in concealed moralising.
The health care costs incurred by a sustained level of alcohol consumption of a period of years can be offset by taxes on the makers of alcohol, the people who profit. Beyond meeting the costs of such healthcare, so long as medicine is socialized, the State and its arms have no business interfering with the amount any individual can drink. Imposing a minimum price on alcohol is intended to do just that.
Advocates are careful to point to research that suggests a minimum price hits heavy drinkers harder than moderate drinkers. Yet heavy drinkers are already paying proportionately more than moderate drinkers, as every single drink is taxed as it is. I see no reason why people who choose cheaper drinks should be further punished by price controls which will increase by integer multiples the price of their drinks.
The evidence from the above research suggest the following things:
1. Price increases do correlate to a reduced demand for alcohol.
2. Under age drinkers, binge drinkers and harmful drinkers choose cheaper drinks.
3. Increases in taxation and prices reduce harm.
What is not addressed, and is explicitly admitted as a gap in current evidence, is the effect increasing prices would have on those on low incomes, and how this would challenge their right to drink at all, over the course of a year say, never mind the large amounts of harmful drinkers or binge drinkers (35+ units per week, or over 8 units for men per occasion, respectively). This is something which requires a look-in.
It would be grotesque if we were to sanction the right of one part of the population to continue drinking Napoleon Brandy to their heart’s content while the another part struggles to buy the odd Pinot Grigio or a couple of six packs of lager a week, which face being increased to a minimum of £6. For this reason, I think the new proposals of the UK government, of challenging the ways supermarkets sell alcohol, aren’t up to much either – as they result in the same thing: a minimum price.
In wider terms, obviously I like the idea of alcohol causing less harm to people, but if people choose to harm their own health by continuing to drink as heavily as they do, then surely that is their choice? We’re not talking about cases of clinical alcoholism here; these are fully functioning, rational people who choose to drink as much as they do. They are not morally inferior, whatever their life choices.
I will admit, on occasion I can be something of a binge drinker, though usually I am moderate and social about drinking. So moderate in fact that I’m currently not touching a drop until the end of February, as part of my New Year’s Resolution. I have evolved a taste in wine, and I can tell the difference between a rot-gut rum and a seven year-old cuban, so this is unlikely to affect me very much – I don’t drink White Lightning.
But I don’t look down on people who do drink such so-called ‘park bench’ drinks. The proponents of the bill before the Scottish Parliament clearly do however. They do not think such people as drink these kinds of alcohol should be permitted to buy whatever they wish – they cannot be trusted, their judgment is somehow impaired that they have to be coerced into buying less alcohol by pricing mechanisms.
I support the attempt of the Alcohol Etc. Bill to add restrictions to the marketing of alcohol. Tightening the methods for verifying age when purchasing alcohol is also beneficial because it will reduce the means whereby underage people can get access to alcohol. But a lot of the evidence in the guidance notes, which essentially attempts to blame alcohol for criminality, is of a worrying quality.
There is the assertion, for example, that “49% of Scottish prisoners (including 76% of young offenders) said they were drunk at the time of their offence and two-thirds of those accused of homicide in 2007-08 (and whose drug status was known) were either drunk or on drink and drugs at the time of their offence.” I’m sure this is true, but I doubt the all murders in particular were committed because of the alcohol or drugs.
No doubt there were other reasons and alcohol and drugs lowered inhibitions – and this can happen regardless of the price of the alcohol. There is no evidence, no research, to show that the murder rate would be greatly reduced by reducing the amount of alcohol consumed across the country. I’m not saying there is no causal link, but it is unlikely to be as strong as the explanatory notes suggest.
In any case, simply increasing the price of alcohol does not address the culture of binge drinking. Indeed while the amount of alcohol consumed might decrease, the amount of money spent on it might increase, creating other sorts of social problems. Neither does the bill directly address domestic violence and the other issues in which alcohol is cited as a contributory factor. Matters like insufficient safety nets and the culture of silence around something like domestic violence are surely much more important than attacking alcohol consumption?
These are things which can be tackled without the need to resort to blanket measures that serve to restrict the choices of people who may be no more anti-social than you or I, but who may drink more, or may drink a different kind of alcohol.
They’ll be stopping us from smoking next…. oh dear.
I lived in Scotland for a while and I really don’t understand the mentality of the SNP when it comes to things like this, you’d think because of their nationalism they’d be pushing the price down to get with their cultural identity, innit.
I start from a position of being broadly inclined to support this move, although I won’t come to a definite position until I’ve seen some of the research you’re calling for on the impact on low-income households.
I’m not a “libertarian at heart” on these issues like yourself, so I don’t necessarily have a problem with the idea of stopping people doing things which are bad for them. I think you underestimate the cultural impact of narrowing the price gap between drinking in pubs and drinking at home. I also have some sympathy with old-fashioned temperance arguments about alcohol serving as a distraction from struggle/dulling senses and so hindering widespread united working class action. (I accept there are greater factors preventing this!) I don’t accept that there is anything that anyone does that has no effect on other people.
I don’t see this as a catch-all solution in the way the SNP seem to; clearly the problems you identify are not caused purely by alcohol consumption, and price controls will not fix them on their own – but surely price controls are one of the levers we should be using to regulate alcohol consumption.
Well Tim, there’s a few things to mention. I see no reason why people should be denied the right to get drunk, and to do so cheaply. If I could afford to get pleasantly inebriated in a pub, I would do so, as it seems an altogether more sociable environment.
So if the price gap between pubs and drinking at home must be narrowed, then the problems lie with the pubs, not with the supermarkets. If the government wishes to affect this, it can enforce a maximum price on the cost of buying alcohol from the breweries, and get rid of certain backward monopolistic practices of those breweries that allow them to squeeze pubs.
On the temperance argument, I don’t disagree with you that drinking culture is a pressure valve that has evolved as the spaces for other social activities have slowly eroded. The government can have a role here in increasing social spending and into planning laws can be integrated new and tougher rules on how our towns and cities should be developed, so that each new development adds – rather than subtracts – to an overall scheme that provides leisure facilities.
As a political movement, we too can have a role. We can encourage temperance. I am a great admirer of the unflinching puritanism of some antecedents of the Left. But the use of state power to enforce this is not a solution. It merely serves to obfuscate the issue, so that another dividing line appears in the working class between those who want to drink, cheaply and without interference by the State, and those who want to restrict the rights of others to drink.
I think it’s vital to stress that we’re not talking about clinical alcoholics. We’re talking about people whose powers of reasoning are not curtailed by an addiction. So let’s treat with them as free people.
There’s also a deeper issue at hand, innate confusion brought about by the politically motivated unscientific drug classification system.
there are illegal drugs that are class C B and even A which are relatively safer than alcohol surely this sends out massively conflicting messages to youngsters armed with abundant information from the internet ect
This could be a contributing factor which May cause them to devalue government advice in this area.
The key to the problem is educating people, if people are informed properly then surely it is their own right to drink as much alcohol as they wish as long as they don’t leave the ‘private sphere’ which was properly addressed in the above blog.
Well, to be fair I think that any classification system will ultimately be political. After all, how does one classify anything? On the basis of the physical harm to users, the cost to the NHS, the ‘other’ elements of criminality in which the traffic is implicated, the number of crimes committed by users? The choice between these criteria and others is not abstract, it is and must be political.
I also don’t agree that the key problem is educating people, if by educating people you mean government-run awareness campaigns. These have been running for a number of years, and they include everything from school visits to billboards to rather gruesome radio and television spots and people are still drinking to excess in record numbers. I do think there is a social cause behind it.
I just don’t think we get anywhere by coming down on people for the symptoms of that cause.
i completly disagree, the classification system should never be political but should be based on evidence and science.
The aims of the Misuse of drugs Act where we get our drug classification from was to control the possession and supply of ANY drug which is causing or may cause harm to society.
drugs should be classified in accordance to their relevant harms
taking into consideration many different factors, this is what the ACMD came up with which makes perfect sence.
-Physical Harm-
One Acute
Two Chronic
Three Intravenous harm
-Dependence-
Four Intensity of pleasure
Five Psychological dependence
Six Physical dependence
-Social Harms -
Seven Intoxication
Eight Other social harms
Nine Health-care costs
Alcohol and tobacco were class B under this scientific measure, whereas mdma LSD cannabis and other B’s and class A substance’s were actualy lower down in terms of harm in the class C area.
hence my point that there is misinformation and confusion being caused in terms of the education surrounding legal drugs and their percieved level of harm.
Evidence and science are not simply re-statements of an unproblematic reality, Stephen. Whilst the above factors may seem like ‘common sense’, neither does ‘common sense’ correspond to a values-free reality. Certain values and political judgments have shaped the scientific enquiries which have ultimately decided upon the above factors. There is no such thing as science without values, and hence politics.
the fact i said it makes ‘perfect sence’ is my personal opinion projecting my own values on to this research.
i dont believe political judgments have influenced and shaped this scientific enquiry David, as it was done by a group of leading independant scientists with the clear unbiased motive to create a science based harm assesement rather than political or superstition based one which we have today.
but please enlighten me
We can measure, quite clearly, the effects of each of the things mentioned. But the choice to include them, as a component of determining whether or not something should bear a heavier or lighter criminal penalty, is political. I don’t mean this in the vulgar sense that parliament decides, so therefore it is obviously political. I mean that the scientists answered specific questions on specific factors. But this a process of exclusion; what potential factors were excluded from the study? Are all the factors that were included relevant? Answering such questions require values-based (i.e. political) choices on the part of the scientists themselves.
Different values would have produced a different study, by emphasizing other characteristics for example. I’m not arguing with the idea of using these factors as a way to gauge the classification of narcotics and other substances. I am saying two things. First, that any distinction drawn between a ‘politicised’ and ‘evidence-based’ scientific enquiry is a false one as all science is to one degree or another influenced by values, whether explicit or implicit. Second, that the result of getting rid of this imagined concept shows that our problem with the government’s approach is a political difference, not an appeal to some mythical scientific authority that stands outside human consciousness, values and politics.
Well, yes, and all is meaningless and ash in our mouths and eventually the world will be consumed by the sun etc, yet this does not mean it’s false to distinguish between being stabbed and eating cake, or between tomorrow and the year 2050.
I have no problem saying that my disagreement with government on this issue is a political one, based on outcomes and a notion of rights — if not fundamental rights, at least reasonable ones. But I also like to go on the record as mentioning that also, and I consider this important, they’re just making shit up wholesale in order to make their political points make any sense whatsoever, and that without this process of just making shit up, their policies do not, in fact, make sense. Being “evidence based” doesn’t mean all policies flow from a science lab — indeed, there is no single anti/pro-prohibitionist policy that would result from a more scientifically accurate classification system — but it does mean that there is a certain restriction on the range of policies you can consistently put forward and the arguments you can make in support of them.
Given as we’ve had a couple of actual wars and a longer “drugs war” designed on the whims of people who felt they could ignore the ranges of reality described by the evidence and impose their preferred meanings on the plastic universe by sheer force of will, I’m not yet willing to give up the idea that it’s a valid and meaningful policy choice to say that government should be constrained to doing things relevant to a universe that demonstrably exists outside their own heads, even if such a choice is only of their own volition and good will.
If people are making shit up, then it’s not really evidence based, is it?
As for the nonsense about the sun being consumed by the earth, haven’t a clue what the hell you’re on about. Seems like nonsense to me.
Let me quote, again, what you said:
The point I was making is that just because things exist on a continuum does not mean it’s false to make a distinction between them. It’s meaningful to say there’s a difference between tomorrow and five years from now, despite the fact that they are all, to one degree or another, “the future”. It’s also meaningful to say that there are some forms of scientific enquiry that are, as much as possible, based on the evidence available, others that are rather more lackadaisical about it, and others that deliberately cherry-pick to support their pre-decided conclusions.
And, yes, if people are just making shit up, then they are not “evidence-based”. Which was, in fact, my point. It’s meaningful, in my opinion, to distinguish between those who are evidence-based in their politicking and those who are not, not least because those who are not have got us in such a mess of late.
As I said, it’s not a dictation of policies and values from a mythical scientific authority, it’s just a limit on possible courses of action to those that have some basis in the real world. It’s an acknowledgement that, wherever we want to be, we have to start from here.
Oh and it’s the sun that consumes the earth, by the way. The other way round would be nonsense, you’re right.
Cherry picking relevant data escapes my definition of science, I must confess.
As far as I can see, the government’s desire to reduce drinking by increasing price will work, as it seems to have worked elsewhere – like Sweden. I can’t speak to the cherry picking, but since there seem to be some fairly straightforward analogies elsewhere, why not just take them at their word?
That done, it doesn’t dismiss the political objection.
But thank you for putting me in my place, I rather deserved that one.
Because “drinking” is, as you point out, not really a crime or a problem. The problems are the end results of drinking to excess, the crime and anti-social behaviour etc (and, personally, I’m not convinced that those are the “results” of drinking as much as something that drinking can on occasion exacerbate, but, blog comment shorthand, etc)
Even if we go just for the plainest result of excess drinking, the health damage it causes, cheap booze is worse than fancy booze, and cheap booze is still cheap booze even if it’s taxed to be more expensive. And as taxes go up and people still want to drink the cheapest stuff on the shelf, that quality will drop even lower. And then when people can’t even afford that, they start mixing rubbing alcohol with Irn Bru. Or nicking it. Or building a moonshine still. Or buying other narcotics, like heroin or coke or speed, because they end up cheaper than booze.
Reducing “drinking” is meaningless unless one can show it has been reduced in the manner and across the demographics that make a difference, that it has the results you want, and that alcohol-based problems aren’t merely commuted to elsewhere on the balance sheet.
All of which comes part and parcel along with being “evidence-based” in my view.
i do see your point that everything essentialy is shaped by a political decision or ‘value’, im a behaviourist.
Nothings perfect but surely this methodology is a dam sight closer to being unbiased than the current system?
I don’t think bias is a helpful concept. I think the methodology above is certainly more consistent than the political football into which cannabis classification has been turned however, yes.
when i say political bias im more refering to political agenda, i wasnt being concise enough. im suggesting that the current unconsistent classification system is the way it is because it supports the governments agenda on taxing certain drugs which are easy to control the production and sale of (alcohol and tobacco)
whereas cannabis for example wouldnt be the case due to how easily it can be grown in anyones home.
anyway diverting away from these tangents and
back to my earlyer point: that many youngsters believe cannabis to be alot less harmful than legal drugs (and rightly so) yet its class B. surley this is sending out conflicting messages? about the safety of alcohol ect
whats your opinion on this?
Yes I think you are right, that the government does send out inconsistent messages. I also think cannabis should be perfectly legal and people should have the right to grow it – though I wouldn’t permit the right to sell it.
I sit firmly in the libertarian wing with Dave on this. Although I acknoweldge Tim’s point that the ‘anti-social’ effects of alcohol mean that it can be hard to be see it in totally individual choice terms, there are already sanctions in place to deal with people who act violently or recklessly under when under the influence – it remains peopl’es choice whether they want to incur those sanctions.
I agree therefore with Dave that the minimum pricing idea is simply a means of expressing moral disapproval about the drinking habits of the poor. I haven’t got the data to hand, but it’s not very hard to find recent research evidence that in fact it is ‘proffesionals’ who drink the highest number of alcohol per person per week, and if the intention was simply to lower use overall, and therefore the health impact, price increases on the cheapest booze would be right down the priority list.
In the end, I do agree with Tim that, while it might be expressed quite differently, sustained heavy and binge drinking must be linked to an inititial sense of hopelessness and alienation, whether that be amongst the poor or even amongst the ‘professions’. Certainly, it all gets mixed up in a iterative process of social norm ‘heavy drinking is coool/manly/womany/chavly’ leading to reinforcement of social norms, but that doesn’t mean that the solution lies in the behavioural/social psychology (though I accept that there may be some benefit from opinion-former messages) rather than trying to effect material change over living conditions and life choices.
“49% of Scottish prisoners (including 76% of young offenders) said they were drunk at the time of their offence and two-thirds of those accused of homicide in 2007-08 (and whose drug status was known) were either drunk or on drink and drugs at the time of their offence.” I’m sure this is true, but I doubt the all murders in particular were committed because of the alcohol or drugs.
The basic legal test of cause is the ‘but for’ test. Would the event not have happened ‘but for’ the factor you are testing. I imagine in many of these cases the answer is no. Nor in many cases is the alcohol a particularly remote cause. If it were it would be unlikely that it should be so prevalent in these cases. After all, on average people aren’t drunk 49% of the time.
Actually I’m surprised its as low as 49% – you can easily go a month in a criminal legal practice without dealing with a single case which isn’t drink, drugs or learning difficulties (apart from the occasional psychotic).
I agree. If “binge drinking” is a problem, then it is a cultural one. No cultural problem can be solved by any Whitehall bureaucrat. Compare with smoking. Many many more people used to smoke than now. What changed the culture of smoking? It wasn’t minimum pricing, but getting th message out of what smoking did to your health. This hasn’t really been done with alcohol. I’ve seen nothing emphasizing livers the way the anti-smoking campaign emphasized lungs to children for instance.
I agree that it seems like it is telling the poor that they are not able to control their own lives. However, I think in order to change the culture, you start with the kids and I would think it’s actually targeted more at making a change there than with the adults. It being a problem for the poor is an issue, but maybe it’s a difficult decision that needs to be taken. How do you stop kids on the street getting drunk? There have to be a lot of other measures too, but maybe increasing price is a start.
Let them drink in the pubs.
It’s not like the argument is that these kids have no self-control. It is, as Alex says, a cultural matter. If we want to fight binge drinking, the ‘other measures too’ are much more important than pricing – which affects everyone.