Scottish government Alcohol Bill plan pass key vote

The Scottish government's plans to tackle the country's historic alcohol abuse problems have passed their first parliamentary hurdle.

MSPs voted for the principles of the Alcohol Bill, although opposition parties have vowed to remove plans for minimum pricing at a later date.

Opposition parties support other measures in the bill. These include banning drink promotions, the ability to raise the age for buying alcohol, and bringing in a "social responsibility fee" for retailers who choose to sell alcohol.

But opposition parties argue setting a minimum price per unit of alcohol is probably illegal under European competition law.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/10276863.stm

How do you Scots feel about this? Would banning drinks promotions or having to pay more for your booze affect your drinking habits? Or do you think, as many have suggested, that it's simply a tax on the poor who for some, is one of the few pleasures they enjoy after a long hard weeks work?

Doesn't bother me at all.

I think wherever they try and do something like this its a right cheek!

That's pretty similar to what Cameron has said he is going to do here isn't it? Minimum prices and extra fee's on pubs?

Great Britain has always had a culture of 'binge drinking', trying to make our drinking patterns closer to France or Spain's is going to be extremely difficult.

I always though that is was wrong that cigarette adverts on TV were banned but not alcohol, so it's a good step imo. It's not like people don't know about it anyway.

France stuffs wine down its kids necks from toddlers lol. They just get sick of it by 18. Cant see that happening here.

I think its none of the governments business how much we all drink. They only see it as an easy tax.

I'll be 21 by the time any new rules are implemented but it seems a little pointless. There is no proof that this will tackle alcoholism in the UK, the entire argument is the whole 'use your common sense', though social problems like this never boil down to what 'seems' to make sense.

Thing is it's going to be students who suffer the most. Like if the laws where in place at the moment I wouldn't be able to buy booze to sit in with a mate and watch the USA-England game on Saturday. Instead I'd have to go to a pub, spending about ?2.50 a pint. Four pints would cost me ?10. At the moment for ?10 I can get an entire crate of beer and still have a pound left over.

Myself, and most people buying beer at the moment for the world cup, are not problem drinkers.

Students will suffer most under the SNP idea.

It would also be awful for the economy, Whisky is the second biggest earner to Scotland after Oil.

Here they want to make a price per unit system, stop under 21s from legally being able to drink outside of pubs, clubs or restaurants and completely stop drinks promotions.

That would include, for example, student deals. Like our Student Union does a Pint and a Burger deal for ?3. That would have to stop.

Under the last law change we had here they stopped clubs from being allowed to serve food on the premises. Considering the best thing to do when drinking is to drink water and eat food that bit is just an anomaly.

Well, it's an entirely different culture. The government seem to look at how other countries do things and implement it here, without realising that it works in other countries because they have an entirely different outlook on these things. Yes, in France children have watered down wine with food, but the point is that they treat it in a different way than us.

Alcohol costs the NHS a lot of money, as well as Police time and money - more than cigarettes. In a lot of ways I think it is actually worse than cigarettes.

I think the biggest problem is that landlords and pub managers refuse to stop serving those who have blatantly had enough, because it means they lose money.

But those with real problems, alcoholics - this won't mean that much to them. So they need to spend a bit more than they used to? They have an addiction, they will get the money.

Yeah, but the point is its still peoples free will how much they have. I work in a pub, and the landlord will stop serving people sometimes. Theyve been trying to cut down on drinking probably for centuries, and never managed it lol. They'll just find students and people are even more in debt at the end.