EVERYONE is aware of the true cost of Scotland's love affair with alcohol. Two-fifths of men and a quarter of women in Scotland exceed the recommended daily limit for alcohol intake, producing nearly 2,500 alcohol-related deaths every year. But the pain and social cost go further.
Alcohol misuse and the violence and medical conditions it spawns now cost Scotland (and the taxpayer) over £1 billion a year. One in six road deaths is due to drink driving. Alcohol is a factor in more than half the deaths caused by fire in Scotla
nd. And one in five patients discharged from psychiatric units has an alcohol-related diagnosis.
This epidemic shows no sign of diminishing.
Cheap drink and a culture that uses alcohol freely as a social lubricator has led to a doubling of alcohol-related deaths among women during the past decade.
Such a social crisis cannot continue without doing serious damage to the nation. This is why the decision of the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, to concentrate his energies on raising public awareness regarding the alcohol abuse problem, is to be applauded.
Mr MacAskill has rightly focused on the need for "a long-term drive to change Scotland's culture – to help make sure drinking to get drunk is simply no longer seen as acceptable".
Last year, in pursuit of this broad aim, Mr MacAskill proposed a levy on clubs and pubs to help pay for the extra policing bill caused by having to contain drunken violence on the streets. The minister justified this on the "polluter pays" principle, that as the drinks industry benefits financially from selling the alcohol that causes the problem, the industry should help pay to sort out the mess. Yesterday, he suggested extending that principle to retailers, large and small, who sell alcohol across the counter. The money so raised would go to local and community initiatives designed to discourage alcohol abuse, especially among the young.
Mr MacAskill is to be commended for his zeal to seek new ways of making Scotland confront its addiction. However, there are questions that need to be asked about his latest idea. Is the retail levy meant to be punitive and so price alcohol out of the reach of the young? Surely that would hurt small shopkeepers (necessary for any community), as well as penalise those who use alcohol sensibly.
Or is the levy designed as a tax to fund alcohol education programmes? That is laudable, but surely we need to fund those through mainstream public expenditure, otherwise we risk sending the message that such programmes are peripheral. And if retailers are to be levied, would it not be better to return the money to them to finance a sensible-drinking campaign? Besides, why not crack down harder on the off-licences which sell to under-age drinkers, rather than penalise law-abiding shopkeepers?
