News
- Survey shows post-pandemic increase in drinking for some
- Scottish Government commit to further plans to restrict alcohol marketing
- Challenge and Change: Rod Anderson
- Parliament must come together to renew and reinvigorate MUP
- A responsible drinking campaign that features cocktail recipes
- Unacceptable rise in alcohol-specific deaths
- Health experts share concerns about complaint made on MUP evaluation
- Decline in alcohol treatment in Scotland
- Challenge and Change: Lived Experience Voices on Alcohol Marketing
- Blog post for Alcohol Awareness Week 2023
- Final verdict on MUP
- Alcohol and diabetes
- Doctors say lack of response on alcohol deaths could spell disaster for Scotland
- MUP reduces deaths and hospital admissions
- Alcohol hospital admissions continue to be too high
- Lessons learned from countries with marketing restrictions
- What is the effect of alcohol marketing on people with or at risk of an alcohol problem?
- ONS figures show highest alcohol deaths on record
- MUP and alcohol sales
- Scottish Government launches alcohol marketing consultation
- MUP and alcohol products and prices
- Scottish Health Survey 2021
- New licensing policy review guide
- Slight increase in alcohol-specific deaths
- Health campaigners call on Scottish Government to regulate alcohol packaging
- Scottish charity calls for ban on all alcohol promotion
- New NCD Prevention Report - Mapping Future Harm
- Online Alcohol Sales & Deliveries: A survey of young people in Scotland
- Four years of MUP
- Prominent health warnings make drinking “unappealing”
- Insights from People in Recovery
- Meet our Engagement Team Marc
- Meet our Engagement Team Megan
- Report on alcohol sales and harm in Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Sugar content in wine revealed
- Alcohol hospital admissions lower during pandemic
- Study reveals those already at risk from heavy drinking bought more alcohol during lockdowns
- Alcohol policy measures could reduce ambulance callouts
- 18.6% increase in deaths from alcohol in 2020
- Widespread support for calls to increase minimum unit price for alcohol to 65p
- Students as Change Agents
- Health charities call for action to save lives from Scotlands biggest killers
- Three quarters of Scots back new controls to help protect children from alcohol advertising
- Alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland increase
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- Health experts call for better alcohol labelling
- Young people and their views on alcohol marketing
- Lowest alcohol sales in Scotland for 26 years
- Minimum unit pricing has lasting impact study shows
- Euros renews call for action to protect children from alcohol sports sponsorship
- Current alcohol labelling of little relevance to young adult drinkers
- Governments should step up efforts to tackle harmful alcohol consumption
- Scottish public and leading health experts back changes to alcohol labelling
- AFS calls for 65p minimum unit price for alcohol
- How will the main parties prevent harm from alcohol?
- Alcohol labelling reform is way past its sell by date
- Alcohol policy priorities for the next parliament
- Young drinkers believe prominent health warnings on alcohol could boost risk awareness
- Alcohol and the Workplace Effective Interventions
- Alcohol sales and consumption in Scotland during the pandemic
- How can we prevent alcohol deaths?
- Alcohol Deaths and Minimum Unit Pricing
- YoungScot Health Panel report on alcohol marketing and harm
- Young Scots show support for restrictions on alcohol marketing
- New release of alcohol related hospital admissions
- Better alcohol labelling – A way to boost awareness of the risk between alcohol and cancer?
- NICE Guidelines on FASD Surveillance or Support?
- Alcohol Deaths Prevention Support
- Almost half of Scots in favour of minimum unit pricing
- Leading health charities call for action in Scotland
- Health experts campaign for better understanding of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
- Health experts call for alcohol labelling overhaul
- Australian ministers agree to visible pregnancy warning
- Alcohol Focus Scotland welcomes new WHO report on alcohol pricing
- Survey shows Scots lockdown drinking rise caused by stress
- Statistical analysis of off-trade alcohol sales in the year following MUP
- Alcohol Focus Scotland Review of statements of licensing policy 2018 to 2023
- We need to continue long-term focus on alcohol
- Scots report changing drinking patterns during coronavirus lockdown
- Time to Blow the Whistle on Alcohol Sport Sponsorship
- New evidence demonstrates that alcohol ads lead to youth drinking
- Alcohol sales fall in first year of MUP
- First study published into under 18 drinkers post MUP
- Commission on Alcohol Harm calls for evidence
- Two years on Are annual functions reports reaching their potential?
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- New Alcohol Deaths Prevention Support Now Available from AFS
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- Alcohol marketing and children debate in the Scottish Parliament
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- Lowest alcohol sales in 25 years
- Research into fall in violence
- The Children's Parliament investigates an alcohol-free childhood
- Minimum unit pricing one year on
- More about sales data
- A family of resources it is all about prevention, education and resilience
- AFS publish Review of Licensing Board Annual Functions Reports 2017-2018
- Marketing unmasked dispelling the myths and taking a stand
- No place for alcohol marketing in sport
- Scotland publishes first UK guidelines for diagnosing fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)
- The Alcohol Framework 2018 Preventing Harm
- Scotlands new drug and alcohol strategy launched
- AFS welcome new alcohol strategy
- Recent reporting on alcohol sales data
- Diageo is failing to provide latest guidelines on their products
- Drinks companies keeping consumers in dark about risky drinking
- Reducing alcohol consumption can address health inequalities
- Global first alcohol policy set to save hundreds of Scots' lives
- AFS welcomes minimum unit pricing for alcohol
- Truer picture of alcohol harm revealed
- Alcohol causes 3,700 deaths in Scotland every year
- Scotland's licensing system needs clearer direction
- Minimum pricing blog
- Minimum pricing gets green light
- Alcohol brands and young people
- Time for honest conversations about alcohol
- Q&A on alcohol marketing
- UK children anxious about parents' drinking
- Alcohol producers failing to inform public
- Concern over alcohol-related deaths
- We need to make it easier for people to drink less
- Worrying rise in alcohol-related deaths
- Minimum pricing will save lives
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- Scotland's alcohol problem laid bare
- Cheap alcohol is costing Scotland dear
- One drink a day can increase breast cancer risk
- Poverty linked to increased harm from alcohol
- What next for reducing alcohol harm in Scotland?
- Scotland must do more to turn tide of alcohol harm
- Concern as funding for alcohol services cut
- Scottish Government urged to curb alcohol marketing
- Consumers have the right to know health risks
- Alcohol-free childhood is healthiest option
- SWA granted leave to appeal minimum pricing
- SWA will appeal to UK Supreme Court
- SWA urged to respect minimum pricing decision
- Minimum pricing can be implemented in Scotland
- Emergency services face shocking levels of alcohol abuse
- Every child has the right to grow up safe from alcohol harm
- Minimum pricing - European court ruling
AFS welcomes minimum unit pricing for alcohol
The historic introduction of Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) of alcohol is just weeks away and will mark a significant turning point in Scotland’s damaging relationship with drink.
When this life-saving policy comes into effect on May 1, the positive impact on the nation’s health will be felt in a matter of months. In the first year alone, minimum pricing could prevent 60 alcohol-related deaths, 1,300 hospital admissions and 3,500 crimes, and those health and other benefits will build over time. It still shocks me that one in 15 of all deaths in Scotland can be directly attributed to alcohol.
A report in February by NHS Health Scotland showed alcohol causes 3,700 deaths in Scotland in a year, while more than 41,000 people were admitted to hospital in 2015 as a result of drink. We should use the very welcome implementation of MUP as a starting point for even more ambitious policies aimed at further tackling Scotland’s problematic relationship with alcohol.
The publication of the Scottish Government’s alcohol strategy due this spring provides us with an ideal opportunity to build on the world-leading development that is MUP and to stimulate a national conversation about how we change our relationship with alcohol, both individually and collectively.
Scotland's alcohol problem
Scotland clearly has a problem with alcohol. Consumption remains significantly higher than in the rest of the UK, with 17 per cent more alcohol sold per adult in Scotland than in England and Wales. Almost all of this was because of higher sales in supermarkets and off-licences where it is sold at the cheapest prices. The vast majority of Scotland’s alcohol is now brought from off-sales for consumption at home and alcohol is 60 per cent more affordable today than it was 30 years ago.
As well as contributing to ill health, harm from alcohol also affects others, including family members, friends, colleagues and the wider community. Half of Scots report being harmed as a result of someone else’s drinking and more than one in three report having heavy drinkers in their lives.
Children living with a drinker may experience a lack of care, support and protection or, in more severe cases, abuse and neglect. There is also a strong association between alcohol consumption and crime, especially crimes of violence. Increasing the price is one of the most cost-effective policy measures to reduce consumption and harm and one which Alcohol Focus Scotland (AFS) has long supported.
Effective interventions
The World Health Organisation recommends MUP as an intervention to prevent and reduce diseases such as heart disease and cancer. We are the first country in the world to introduce MUP (although states in Canada have variants of it), but already Wales, the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Territories in Australia are following our lead.
Minimum pricing targets the most harmful drinkers because they buy most of the cheapest, strongest alcohol like white ciders and own-brand spirits. It is estimated that the heaviest drinkers in our poorest communities will spend around £88 less per year under a 50p minimum price. It is very unlikely they will move on to other substances, such as illegal drugs.
For people drinking heavily, even small reductions can have big health benefits. The impact on moderate drinkers, meanwhile, is minimal – it is estimated they will spend just an extra £2 per year. MUP will not only help those with chronic alcohol problems but will also stop people getting to that point in the first place. It will help prevent Scotland’s next generation of heavy drinkers.
What's next?
Health Secretary Shona Robison last month set the minimum price per unit at 50p. That figure dated from 2012 when the legislation was passed and before legal challenges by the Scotch Whisky Association and others. It is worth pointing out those delays have cost around 400 lives. To build on the genuine difference MUP will make, AFS seeks a commitment from the Scottish Government to review the MUP within two years, to ensure the benefits are fully optimised.
Its introduction on May 1 is an important milestone and we hope it will also make people reflect on how alcohol is sold in Scotland. MUP does not signify the end of our campaign but marks the beginning of a proper national conversation.
Alison Douglas, Chief Executive