| And he says that if this leads to people organising raids into England for cheaper booze this shouldn’t put us off the idea.
Dr Peter Rice says cross border “smuggling” may have to be accepted if an overall improvement in Scotland’s battle with the bottle is to be won.
He says evidence from elsewhere shows there are fewer drink related deaths when prices are hiked, even when some buyers travel for bargains.
Dr Rice backs Holyrood proposals to raise the price of alcohol, stop bulk promotions, raise the age limit for buying alcohol and a string of other measures.
There has been resistance from those who say the measures won’t work because Scots will make raids into England, where the price of drink would be cheaper.
There are fears that large supermarkets will exploit the situation and establish warehouses just over the border.
Dr Rice said there was interesting experience from Finland, who, a few years ago, dropped the price of alcohol. Previously, people were travelling from Finland to import cheaper alcohol from the Baltic states and Denmark.
“When Finland dropped its price, deaths went up,” said Dr Rice.
He argues that the majority of people will purchase their drink locally and there will be a positive benefit from a price rise.
“Although smuggling is an issue, it is a very small part of the whole problem,” said Dr Rice. “We may have to put up with a bit of smuggling in order for the bigger picture to get better.”
Earlier last week, members of the board of NHS Tayside approved a formal response to the Government’s consultation.
They supported the “bold” proposals and even went further, suggesting a zero-alcohol limit for driving.
The board and its local advisors suggest that legislation should ensure that the larger pub measures should be sold at direct multiples of the unit price — that means 250ml glass of wine should cost exactly twice the price of a 125ml glass.
“One of the big strengths of the consultation paper is that it proposes doing a number of things at once, looking at the supply and promotion of alcohol as well as care and treatment of alcohol abusers,” said Dr Rice.
“Previous approaches have been an either or.” |
