www.alkoholpolitik.ch

A NEW minimum price for alcohol is likely to become law within a year, after the SNP vowed the measure would be the key priority of its second term in office. The newly re-elected Nationalist administration has confirmed the 45-pence-per-unit minimum-price measure will be in its first legislative programme after it was blocked in the last parliament by opposition parties. Sources suggested the legislation would most likely come into force on 1 April next year. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/17/11) news.scotsman.com, 5/10/11 The Swiss Government pretends that minimum prices are against EU-law. (?)

I read with great interest earlier, this BBC News article about the Coalition Government’s plans to bring in a minimum price for alcohol in England and Wales.
In the Coalition Agreement, it was stated that: „We will ban the sale of alcohol below cost price“. Ministers are now fleshing out their proposals to make this a reality.
It will work by banning shops and bars from selling drinks for less than the tax paid on them. It is hoped that this will send a signal that the Government is clamping down on the sale of extortionately cheap alcohol. (Source: Google Alcohol News, 01/19/11) johnmarkcole.blogspot.com, 01/18/11 our Online Comment: It is fine to have an ideology. Then you don’t need thinking.
There is a lot of talking about personal freedom. What about my freedom when the alcohol industry forces me to pay a life long the huge alcohol related social costs? The World Health Organization has mentioned that we all are Passive Drinkers. We all suffer from the harm of alcohol consumption. Taxes are ridiculous low.
Everybody is free to consume according to its income. Drinking alcohol is not a human right. It is better to fight for jobs with an income which enables everybody to live a decent life, instead of giving cheap alcohol to keep the poor calm and down.
What about my personal freedom, when the media do not give the necessary information I need to discuss this matter and ask for the right measures to be taken by the government, because they are alcohol lobbyists? Did you know that in May 2010 the World Health Organization accepted with all 193 votes of the member states a resolution on a global alcohol strategy? In it the alcohol related harm on society and the evidence based measures for harm reduction are listed. Governments only had to implement those proposals, but instead they try everything which wouldn’t harm the alcohol industry. The industry keeps the profit, society pays the social costs in money and in life, etc.

Children’s health education charity Life Education is disappointed by Gordon Brown’s lukewarm response to health advisor’s proposal to raise alcohol prices, that minimum prices be imposed on alcohol to curb binge drinking in the UK. (Source: Medical News Today, 3/18/09)