Re-education is surely the key.

Restoring the link between drink and food might help as well. How about a law stating that the first drinks must be purchased with a hot meal? It'd slow your average punter's consumption rate I think.

I hope they get rid of the cheap and nasty stuff rather than pushing the price of everything up.
My fear is that cheap blended whisky will go up in price which will push up the cost of good single malts too.

It's already happened. Last year the cheapest supermarket whisky was £6.30, but now it's hard to find anything anything under £9

Meths is starting to look like a good alternative.

Can't be arsed to do multiple quotes (it's not easy on this board).

If you look at those who abuse alcohol to the point of physical and mental problems, most of them get wasted on cheap cider and the like. Not saying everyone does but most of them do. I know people who drank three litres of cider or more a day to get their alcohol fix. Why cider? Because it was cheap.

Given that this a major group of people, how do you discourage this behaviour? The easiest option to price them out. In the short term, it makes sense. In the long run, what you really want to do is change the attitude of the nation to drink. Unfortunately, it's easier to move mountains.

Again, drawing on clinical experience, those who stop drinking do it either because they want to, or because they have to (financial reasons).

It's normally white "cider" too.

Proper cider/cyder costs actual monies.

Not down 'ere in Devon it don't.

[/bumpkin]

Down 'ere in Cornwall it does.

I think that many drink for other reasons. Many drink because of trauma of some kind and I can understand that. The problem is the lack of adequate mental health treatment options. If people can deal with their problems without resorting to alcohol then the cost overall will be lower.

The other is that alcohol drink drive limits are too high. It should be zero then people will have to be much more careful about their drinking. The problem with that is that there are barely any police cars out there to actually stop someone. If people were caught earlier they could be forced to undergo alcohol awareness much earlier. Before they kill someone drink driving or have liver failure.

So a report commisioned by the Scottish Parliment, that has had its remit defined by the scottish parliment and its research viewpoint set by the Scottish parliment has backed the Scottish Parliment. Well bugger me sideways as I pick myself off the floor.

Unfortunately this is the way it will be. But Tesco et al. are still doing occasional special offers on some of the real stuff. Not the proper stuff like Oban and Talisker, unfortunately.

got it in one that's why I left ,nowhere else in northern Europe have I ever had that feeling .
And yes I do enjoy a drink or seven ,After all these year's I still haven't figured out an Idea why it's only The Brits that have this mentality /problem .

Wise move. You have a more relaxing climate down there - you can sit on a balcony, by the pool or on a beach drinking a pint of San Miguel (much nicer than the San Miguel we get here I might add) and not have the urge to attack someone. Here we transition between warm rain and cold rain and have to drink indoors, mostly in sweaty hellhole's full to the rafters with identically dressed people (stock male uniform - Ralph Lauren shirt, white trousers, loafers...stock female uniform - small black dress), paying over the odds for watered down beer, an environment so loud you can't communicate without shouting, you leave with tinitus, a pint spilled down your back, hungry and have to queue for a taxi for an hour in the cold.

It's funny, the places where you get drink related problems in Europe, you'll also find British people, football and probably a nightclub!

Not just the brits.

Also drinking problems in both France and Italy, probably elsewhere too. It's definitely not just an English thing.

Yes but 2.1% bitter is not the drink of choice for alcoholics. It does not even appeal to kids. They go for the cheapest bang for your pound, like White Lightning.