cheap drink

[TopSix]

I regularly check the Inverness Courier website to look at the football news.

I was surprised to see this story

http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/fu...ks_slammed.html

It seems like pretty good advertising for 'spoons if you ask me. Are drink promotions like this the real problem? Would a minimum pricing policy in pubs not just encourage people just to buy drink in supermarkets and get sloshed at home? Or should we have a blanket minimum pricing policy to cover alcohol from all outlets?

[Alex MacLeod]

I regularly check the Inverness Courier website to look at the football news.

I was surprised to see this story

http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/fu...ks_slammed.html

It seems like pretty good advertising for 'spoons if you ask me. Are drink promotions like this the real problem? Would a minimum pricing policy in pubs not just encourage people just to buy drink in supermarkets and get sloshed at home? Or should we have a blanket minimum pricing policy to cover alcohol from all outlets?

People have drank for hundreds of years and price has never put them of. Not even in times of rationing. The majority are sensible about their consumption. A minority cant get enough and no amount of price hikes are going to stop them.

The problems nowadays are not so much the alcohol consumption persay. More the damage inflicted as a result of the excess consumption. Damage to health, damage to property, damage to relationships etc.

There is also a different mentallity to drinking nowadays. As a teenager I would go out and have a drink. At times I would get ratarshed but that was never the intention. I would never have been heard to say 'I'm getting smashed tonight'. Yet that seems to be the way of it now. There is also the acceptance that other mind altering drugs are more freely available and being mixed with alcohol.

Pricing will not alleviate the problems. It may even re-open the trade in illicit alcohol production.

[dead_ball_specialist]

When I walk into Spoons I don't suddenly turn into a jakey because they charge less for a pint. I don't see why every single one of us should be punished and hit in the wallet for the actions of an irresposible few.

:)

[Heilandee]

I'm sure the exact same story ran at this time last year,seems like Weatherspoons have latched on to the "outrage" angle and resultant free advertiseing they recieve in towns and cities all over the country for bunging in a loss leader.Being of a similar age to Alex i also remember in my youth going out drinking and getting drunk but not going out drinking to get drunk. My old man ran a grocers/0ff licence in Dundee and i cant remember folk buying beer in more than 6 packs except at Christmas and Hogmanay.I dont think pubs are the main prob in selling cheap drink but 3 cases of beer for ?20 from supermarkets is asking for excessive binge drinking.

[Johnboy]

I'm sure the exact same story ran at this time last year,seems like Weatherspoons have latched on to the "outrage" angle and resultant free advertiseing they recieve in towns and cities all over the country for bunging in a loss leader.Being of a similar age to Alex i also remember in my youth going out drinking and getting drunk but not going out drinking to get drunk. My old man ran a grocers/0ff licence in Dundee and i cant remember folk buying beer in more than 6 packs except at Christmas and Hogmanay.I dont think pubs are the main prob in selling cheap drink but 3 cases of beer for ?20 from supermarkets is asking for excessive binge drinking.

H/Dee...

I think you and I should check this place out, next time we meet up in the town for a wee swally....

Anyone else care to join us?

(You're not as old as Alex, surely?)

[Heilandee]

H/Dee...

I think you and I should check this place out, next time we meet up in the town for a wee swally....

Anyone else care to join us?

(You're not as old as Alex, surely?)

Purely in the name of research JB!!Fifers paradise eh?, I did say similar age to Alex, allowiing for a few years in my favour and the hard paperound i had :P

[Johnboy]

Purely in the name of research JB!!Fifers paradise eh?, I did say similar age to Alex, allowiing for a few years in my favour and the hard paperound i had :P

Oh...purely in the interests of research, H/Dee....

I'm sure we could talk others into joining us - apart from beer/lager at 99p there's something for everyone at Spoons - Fetzer wine for Bannerman, Strathmore water for CaleyD, etc, etc....

[DornochCaley]

It's a joke tbh. You need to target the Kids that are binge drinking. I have had one or two pints before, i have been drunk, but i know my limits and after becoming drunk i don't drink anymore. Im not an alcoholic. Thats what needs to get through to the young'ans now-a-days. I don't get why a guy who works his arse off and then likes a pint after work should get punished because silly little kids are too idiotic to understand their own limits. Or are just to ignotant to bother seeing them.

The main problem is actually spirits. Vodka is the worst. Most people my age get Vodka because it ****s you up the quickest and can go around the most people. Spirits kill. They are the ones that will kill you're liver if you start drinking them from a young age.

Stick to a few Cider or Beer and it would all be fine for young people.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Yngwie
Swearing

[Johnboy]

That is a seriously good post, DC.... I'd say you are absolutely spot on with that...

If only you could get that message across to your contemporaries, the world might become a better place

[dan_ict]

Another problem is that this scenario is now starting to become more frequent among 13, 14 year olds looking to go out purley just to get drunk

[ictchris]

Why should we introduce Soviet-style minimum pricing? All this would do is boost the profits of supermarkets and distort the market. I really doubt anyone who drinks to dangerous levels is going to say "oh well, my bottle of White Lightening is ?1.23 more expensive, I think I'll go home and watch EastEnders tonight and in the long run embrace a sensible-drinking cafe culture."

The vast, vast majority of people drink sensibly and do not become violent, do not develop liver disease and do not require the government to constantly tell them what to do with their own time, money and bodies. If people get drunk and break the law they should be dealt with.

[Guest]

I think you guys may be missing the point, this minimum pricing move could very well be the start of moves towards prohibition. I am not saying that prohibition will happen any time soon but there has certainly been a lot of demonisation of alcohol in the media and lots of moves towards curbing the amount of alcohol used by people. Alcohol is a drug and one of the most destructive drugs out there, if we were to start afresh and classify drugs from scratch the alcohol would almost certainly be in the "class A" band but in the Christian world alcohol is a holy sacrament and is seen as almost untouchable. I believe that the trouble caused by this drug every night in town/city centres is proving too costly for this country and others and moves are afoot to stop this, the problem is that I seriously doubt this can be achieved without prohibition and we will eventually see this happen.

[CaleyD]

All depends on which "alcohol issue" you want to focus on.

With youngsters it's nothing to do with price....in fact they would probably be effected least by any price increases as they have the most disposable income. The problem is that kids today have a "you can't touch me" attitude and when you combine that with the self control destroying properties of drink then it's a recipe for disaster. Youngsters drinking is nothing new, I did it, my parents did it and their parents before them. The difference back then was that we knew that if we got caught or caused any trouble then we'd get punished for it....and that was generally more than not being allowed to play the playstation for a day or two.

In regards to health issues...do we really have as many problems today as we had in the past, or is it simply the case that modern medicine is more probing and picks up more...making it look like the issue is growing? I accept that research shows that alcohol does more damage than we ever thought it did....but that doesn;t mean it's a growing issue.

Adult anti-social behaviour...I think this is a product of what's happening with younger drinkers. They got away with it as teens and, uncorrected, their behaviour and habits have carried over into adulthood. Again, this is not unique to those who drink, I think people are generally less sociable/polite these days and more likely to start a fight in an empty room and again drink only serves to enhance that problem as opposed to it being the underlying cause.

Drink & Drugs are just a convenient peg to hang blame for the wider ranging social issues on and if we dealt with those social issues then, for the most part, other issues would take care of themselves.

[latviaman]

Here I go again .. a bottle of vodka costs 3.4 gbp here and we get our more than fair share of drunks of all ages and sex. But alcoholism is a real problem and there is a great back street business selling illegal vodka . I was told its almost pure alcohol. But these nutters buy it at less than 2gbp a bottle

Also 4 people were found dead in the snow last week all alcohol related deaths and we aint got a Wetherspoons!!!!

[maimie]

In regards to health issues...do we really have as many problems today as we had in the past, or is it simply the case that modern medicine is more probing and picks up more...making it look like the issue is growing? I accept that research shows that alcohol does more damage than we ever thought it did....but that doesn;t mean it's a growing issue.

unfortunately it is a growing issue CD as anyone who works in the medical wards in the hospital will tell you. there are far more young people now with end stage liver disease or koriskoff's psychosis than ever there were in the past and that's not just because medicine is more probing.

the incidence of severe liver disease in young women is increasing too and it's really sad to see someone in their early thirties dying in front of you.

i guess there are no real answers to the problem but years ago you didn't have the alcopops and the like which were purely developed for the younger market.

most of us like a drink and most of us can do it responsively (most of the time) but it certainly is a huge health issue