{"id":352,"date":"2013-03-20T10:12:47","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T10:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reading.ac.uk\/the-forum\/?p=352"},"modified":"2021-11-03T14:23:36","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T14:23:36","slug":"is-a-minimum-price-for-alcohol-the-best-way-to-stop-britain-boozing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2013\/03\/20\/is-a-minimum-price-for-alcohol-the-best-way-to-stop-britain-boozing\/","title":{"rendered":"Is a minimum price for alcohol the best way to stop Britain boozing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Richard Tiffin from the Centre for Food Security<\/a> ponders on whether introducing a minimum price per unit will calm our drinking culture.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introducing a minimum price for alcohol has been back in the news, with claims that the government is planning to back-track on its commitment to introduce a minimum price of 45p per unit of alcohol.\u00a0 This is perhaps not surprising since the case for its introduction has never been made with any degree of clarity and it is relatively easy to provide evidence for very mixed and perhaps undesirable impacts.\u00a0 For example it is clear that the tax will have little impact on the price of alcohol sold \u2018on-licence\u2019 where the average price of alcohol is already \u00a31.16 per unit.\u00a0 It\u2019s also unclear whether the tax will target the people who really matter.\u00a0 Perhaps surprisingly, highest alcohol consumption occurs amongst people who are classified as being in \u2018high managerial\u2019 occupations and the lowest levels are amongst the unemployed.\u00a0 Because the unemployed tend to consume cheap drink however, they will bear more of the burden of the minimum price along with people in the North East, single parents and the over sixties.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that for many individuals alcohol consumption is dangerously high, and that the trend in alcohol consumption is worrying.\u00a0 Using price to tackle this is attractive because virtually everyone understands the law of demand: price up, quantity down. But the apparent simplicity of this law is deceptive: first because changes in quantity are marginal, people with high levels of consumption continue to drink a lot, just a bit less than before; and second, because people will substitute some of the reduction in more expensive spirits with wine for which the price doesn\u2019t change.<\/p>\n

We should recognise that drinking is a deeply cultural activity and for some it is undoubtedly a form of self-medication. Attempts to address the problem should be framed accordingly.\u00a0 Like smoking, real progress will only be made when it is clear that high levels of alcohol consumption are culturally unacceptable.\u00a0 Further, increasing the financial pressure on those that are least able to cope with it may worsen the problems that lead to self-medication.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that we should remove the \u2018cheap booze\u2019 culture from society and that doing so will save lives.\u00a0 The question remains however as to whether putting the price up is too simplistic a way of addressing this problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Richard Tiffin from the Centre for Food Security ponders on whether introducing a minimum price per unit will calm our drinking culture. Introducing a minimum price for alcohol has…Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1785],"tags":[56,693],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture-food-and-health","tag-alcohol","tag-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs a minimum price for alcohol the best way to stop Britain boozing? - Connecting Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2013\/03\/20\/is-a-minimum-price-for-alcohol-the-best-way-to-stop-britain-boozing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is a minimum price for alcohol the best way to stop Britain boozing? - Connecting Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Professor Richard Tiffin from the Centre for Food Security ponders on whether introducing a minimum price per unit will calm our drinking culture. 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