Minimum Alcohol Pricing

[Benjamin_Nevis]

On 21/03/2023 at 18:32, Billy Jean King said:

I became a crack head because I could no longer get three bottles of electric white for the price of two is quite the take

I work with addicts of both alcohol and drugs on a pretty regular basis and in my experience the group of the most hardened, addicted alcoholics often get to a level where they simply cannot stop consuming alcohol, or they'll have severe withdrawal issues and in extreme cases, death. To suggest that they'll suddenly notice that shite cider is a bit dearer and give the local smack dealer a phone instead is as laughable as it is desperate. 

[Leith Green]

50 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

It depends what you mean by success - there clearly has been a drop in alcohol related deaths - but has it dropped enough?

Probably not.

 

There was a doctor on the radio yesterday and he said that MUP had demonstrably worked (on overall alcohol death stats) but that we still have some real issues with those who were already problem drinkers - the kind of people who say "I dont care that Frosty Jacks Cider is now 50p more, I just wont eat".

[Todd_is_God]

1 hour ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

It depends what you mean by success - there clearly has been a drop in alcohol related deaths - but has it dropped enough?

Probably not.

 

The article above said they were at their highest level since 2008.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

43 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

The article above said they were at their highest level since 2008.

It also says

Experts believe restricted services and isolation were factors in a spike in alcohol deaths during the Covid pandemic.

in essence Covid has added so much noise to the signal that anybody attempting to draw conclusions from this limited data with any degree of certainty is on very shaky ground 

[Todd_is_God]

4 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

It also says

Experts believe restricted services and isolation were factors in a spike in alcohol deaths during the Covid pandemic.

in essence Covid has added so much noise to the signal that anybody attempting to draw conclusions from this limited data with any degree of certainty is on very shaky ground 

I agree. That, however, didn't stop the SG crowing about how well it had worked when the 2021 figures showed a drop in both deaths and alcohol sales, however.

[scottsdad]

2 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

It depends what you mean by success - there clearly has been a drop in alcohol related deaths - but has it dropped enough?

Probably not.

 

They have risen, but a recent study showed that they rose ever so slightly more in northern England. As such, they are concluding that MUP has saved lives. 

But this also negates the very real point that MUP is utterly devastating to hardcore alcoholics. They stop spending money on things like food and heating to keep drinking, making their health outcomes worse. In effect, the very people this policy is designed to "save" are being harmed by it. 

As @Todd_is_God says, the answer always seems to be that it isn't expensive enough. Heard a guy on Radio Scotland yesterday saying it needed "reset" to 70p a unit. A 40% jump in costs.

[Wee Bully]

Sounds like some interesting research. 

[scottsdad]

3 minutes ago, Wee Bully said:

Sounds like some interesting research. 

Same article as has been discussed here before. Here is their case: look at the dip in Scotland and England in mid-2020. The fact it is a bit deeper in Scotland has been attributed by this article to MUP. This is where this "13% drop" pish comes from.

 

[topcat(The most tip top)]

On 20/04/2023 at 09:18, scottsdad said:

They have risen, but a recent study showed that they rose ever so slightly more in northern England. As such, they are concluding that MUP has saved lives. 

But this also negates the very real point that MUP is utterly devastating to hardcore alcoholics. They stop spending money on things like food and heating to keep drinking, making their health outcomes worse. In effect, the very people this policy is designed to "save" are being harmed by it. 

As @Todd_is_God says, the answer always seems to be that it isn't expensive enough. Heard a guy on Radio Scotland yesterday saying it needed "reset" to 70p a unit. A 40% jump in costs.

Theoretically those who were drinking themselves to death will be flushed into oblivion faster by that effect but there should also be a reduction of people entering the pipeline at the other end. The negatives would show up in the crude overall figures earlier than the positives

But given that 50p a unit is so cheap that it's liable to make very little difference in either direction trying to draw conclusions from that data is a mugs game

50p MUP is such an  inconsequential measure that it's  practically homeopathic. 

The genuine scientific approach would be to go to about 80p a unit and see what happens

That's "Scientific" in the sense of carrying out experiments and observing the results so that you can then draw valid conclusions.

 

[ICTChris]

There are calls to raise the minimum unit price from 50p after a review finds that the MUP has been successful.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66020624

What the review did say is that there is limited evidence of any reduction in alcohol intake among those dependent on alcohol - there is a sad case study of an alcoholic man in the BBC link above.

I think there are some questions about the evidence but I don't have time to go into it all now.

[strichener]

8 hours ago, ICTChris said:

There are calls to raise the minimum unit price from 50p after a review finds that the MUP has been successful.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66020624

What the review did say is that there is limited evidence of any reduction in alcohol intake among those dependent on alcohol - there is a sad case study of an alcoholic man in the BBC link above.

I think there are some questions about the evidence but I don't have time to go into it all now.

Twas always the way this would go.  Increase the price on the basis that it's working but obviously not inflicting enough punishment on those that continue to need to drink.

Edited June 27, 2023 by strichener

[scottsdad]

It's the same story as before. Deaths in Scotland have gone up since MUP was introduced. But they've gone up a little less than they have in northern England (aka the control group). As such, this is being explained as MUP reducing deaths. 

[Wee Bully]

22 hours ago, scottsdad said:

It's the same story as before. Deaths in Scotland have gone up since MUP was introduced. But they've gone up a little less than they have in northern England (aka the control group). As such, this is being explained as MUP reducing deaths. 

And given previous direction of travel, that is a sensible explanation. 

[scottsdad]

42 minutes ago, Wee Bully said:

And given previous direction of travel, that is a sensible explanation. 

Which direction of travel was this?

[Wee Bully]

7 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Which direction of travel was this?

That ourselves and the North of Englandwere mapping a similar trajectory.  

[scottsdad]

1 minute ago, Wee Bully said:

That ourselves and the North of Englandwere mapping a similar trajectory.  

We still are. See the graph from my post on May 1st. That's what these claims are based on. 

[Wee Bully]

1 minute ago, scottsdad said:

We still are. See the graph from my post on May 1st. That's what these claims are based on. 

Your graph doesn’t show the North of England though?

[scottsdad]

1 minute ago, Wee Bully said:

Your graph doesn’t show the North of England though?

Not my graph!

The red dotted line is what you're looking for. 

[Wee Bully]

1 minute ago, scottsdad said:

Not my graph!

The red dotted line is what you're looking for. 

Unless I am missing the annotation (which is very possible) the red dotted line doesn’t seem to be “North of England”

[scottsdad]

4 minutes ago, Wee Bully said:

Unless I am missing the annotation (which is very possible) the red dotted line doesn’t seem to be “North of England”

That's because you didn't read the article.

Table 3 lists the control groups - North-East England and North-West England. The sensitivity section explains this.