Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
It was only a matter of time before this guy showed up.
Denormalisation of alcohol
- Thread starter Maurice Picarda
- Start date
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
Did he say a few drinks made you better at driving, or am I imagining that? Pickled brain?
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
What about the majority who don't go to university? Surely they should be allowed a pint after a hard day's graft?
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
That dude is, like, a total buzzkill, dude.
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
Medics thinking they have a god-given right to control/direct the rest of us. Not a lot new there?
And when you look at the various clinical initiatives against alcohol, some familiar names usually turn-up in a policy, finance or organisational role.
And some of the coalitions are loose - largely because of the differing agendas but the goals are pretty similar in the end.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
No, it was actually a proposal that drinking and driving be legalised, so that pub customers down the country could - I nit you shot - get home safely after closing hours.
Hard days graft? pfft they haven't got to "blow off steam" like them hard working stressed out students.
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
Couldn't they just be directed down the back roads? This was advice seriously handed out to friends of mine by the gardai when they were driving back from a night out in the next village over. Approx 15 years ago.
I think the simple answer to this sententious drivel is, is 'fuck off.' Fuck off with your minimum pricing, fuck off with your increased drinking ages (which, of course, work so well in the States) and fuck the fuck off with snide remarks about supporting Diageo and their ilk. The pub's one of life's pleasures: keep your sanctimonious nose out of it.
Much as I was going to have a quiet evening and an early night tonight, in the wake of this I might go to the pub after work instead.
Much as I was going to have a quiet evening and an early night tonight, in the wake of this I might go to the pub after work instead.
My experience supervising in a student union bar years ago was that American students quite often came over with an attitude that anything the Brits could do, they could do as well or better. That included drinking. We spent quite a bit of time carrying drunken Yanks out of the bar for the first few weeks of term.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
mad that you can drive around in a pick up truck with a loaded gun at 17 but not get a beer legally
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Send you away to a foreign land to be blown to bits? Fine. Have a drink when you get back? No!
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
When you have alcoholics in your family / circle of friends you tend to think a bit differently about this I think. I don't buy the argument that people only become alcoholics because of their problems / stresses of our society... it's a fucking addictive drug, and our culture puts it central to most social occasions which makes it really hard to avoid. I don't know the answer but to be a complete libertarian on this issue is to be completely callous to the misery that alcohol causes to those people it harms.
*standard post about all the bars in the Houses of Parliament*
I'm not in favour of many of the measures Maurice suggests, but to claim they won't work (as some on the thread suggest) flies in the face of evidence - they would have an impact, and they would go some way to 'denormalising' alcohol.
However: while I'd love to live in a country where alcohol wasn't such a constant, I think top-down legislation is the wrong way to go about achieving such a goal.
However: while I'd love to live in a country where alcohol wasn't such a constant, I think top-down legislation is the wrong way to go about achieving such a goal.
I don't think many people would disagree with this, but because it's such a complex and multi layered issue it requires an appropriate response / solution. Just sticking a few quid on a bottle of Kirov and stopping Van Damme from making those increasingly odd Coors adverts is not going to cut it.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Interesting. I don't drink as I don't like the sensation of being drunk, never mind the other risks. IMO, if alcohol was suddenly discovered now, it would quickly get banned as an addictive drug. Not that prohibition really ever solves anything. So we still have a major problem for society; perhaps education is the slow solution coupled with finding other ways to relax ........
Yup would be banned before someone even thought of it as per new government legislation going through. But it's here and we have free will, as with most of these things there are things the government can do but any policy should always be framed around harm reduction. The blunt tool of just ban / tax it is pretty short sighted.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
Of course it needs a multi-faceted response, and over decades. But there is evidence that minimum pricing should be a part of that response, and I think most people misunderstand that, thinking it will increase their personal costs when in reality it tends to affect the types of alcohol used by problem drinkers.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
poorer people with less access to very clean water would often drink small beer- weak brewed stuff- in the middle ages. Couple that with the idea that bread sold to the poor was often bulked out with ground hemp seed, riddled with ergotamine and fungal nasties, the working poor of those times must have been in a constant low level daze.
Quite - the decline of the boozer as a social space has been to the huge detriment of (in particular working class) community cohesion: while the reason for this decline are many and complex, it is at least partly down to the smoking ban, as well as rising prices.
The boozer has not been replaced by alcohol-free community spaces. Further decline would not necessarily see this happening either...
It won't affect me as I never drink at home. But here's the thing, how are we defining problem drinking? Round my way all I see if smug twats shifting box's and box's of wine into their Audis and Volvos, presumably necking a couple of bottles each night isn't problem drinking?
Also why is it always minimum pricing? Why not tax? Why do Tesco get the reap the reward?
Maurice Picarda
Actually, might as well flounce.
To stop them from using discounted alcohol to lure shoppers into spending more money on stuff.
Stella is a known value item. We know that a can is worth a quid. If the booze tax goes up dramatically, we would then know that a can is worth £1.10. When Tesco sells 20 stellas for £15, we assume that their pricing for more mysterious goods, like avocaat or fennel, is similarly attractive, and we end up more likely to accept higher margin on these items. If the tax went up, they would charge £17 for the stellas with the same effect.
Minimum pricing doesn't help the supermarkets; it stops them from using booze offers to confuse us into spending more in the weekly shop - and glugging more beer at home as a result.
Why didn't they do that with tabs?
Maurice Picarda
Actually, might as well flounce.
When I smoked, cigarettes were cheaper at supermarkets than newsagents. Especially for boxes of 200. I think there were always rules about money-off promotions and tobacco, though.
Sure, but I don't recall any form of promotion on tabs ever. If we have to go down the road I really don't see why it can't be done through taxation, they've easily done it with on-licences.
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