We already suffer some of the most draconian taxation on alcohol, and yet the gaff-prone health minister, Patricia Hewitt, has written to the Chancellor to demand a steep hike in taxation in the next budget. Ms Hewitt believes that raising tax can stem the chronic abuse of alcohol by Britain’s youth.
When will politicians learn? Taxation has very little effect on how people drink. And consumption itself cannot be blamed on anti-social behaviour. On the continent where taxes are invariably low, many countries have very few problems with alcoholic related problems. It’s cultural, not economic.
Finland notoriously taxes alcohol very heavily, yet Finnish consumption exceeds that of Greece and Poland. Alcoholics, it seems, couldn’t give a XXXX for the price mechanism. Hungary on the other hand, has low prices, high consumption, and many problems. My mother was in Budapest last weekend and was disconcerted by the number of vagrants openly dunk on the city’s streets.
This is yet another knee-jerk reaction to public concern over anti-social behaviour; MP’s, clearly wholly unable to stem its rise, are desperate to be seen to be tackling it. So rather than tackle the real root problems of social exclusion, such as inequality, unquenchable material aspiration, and a serious lack of civic provision, kids turn to alcohol abuse and drugs.
I thought progressive governments tackled causes, not symptoms?
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I agree, Tyger. Apart from the fact that the young people will get the cheapest of the drinks with the subsequent damage to their health and higher costs for the NHS.
While you are correct that taxation in general doesn’t stop drinking, I think the increasing cost of the alcohol might discourage teenage drinkers, who have less to spend.
Kids drink alcopops because they are sweet and disguise the taste of the alcohol (do you remember when you first tried alcohol? It took me ages to get used to beer and wine and initially I just used to drink Baby Sham, which was expensive, so as we’d nurse one drink all evening!)
Though France has not got a drinking problem in general, when alcopops were introduced there, they had a surge of teens ending up in A&E - so they raised tax on alcopops, and it stopped. beer and wine are cheap in France but not palatable enough for teens to drink, so they don’t.
I think Nanny Hewitt might be right on this!
Taxation will not change anything - except that they will find more vile drinks to rot their stomachs with. Alcopops are not the sole or even the more popular of drinks. Many don’t care about the taste its the getting drunk - the lowering of inhibitions in order to fit in. If they get a tenner pocket money then someone will buy the £8 bottle of vodka to be mixed with a 79p bottle of coke and pocket the change. Don’t forget those lovely kids who drink cider at the bus stop - that isnt an alcopop