Sir, – While I agree with Mark Paul’s advice that accurate data will be required in due course to understand the efficacy of minimum unit pricing, I fear his economic view may be muddying the clarity of his presentation of the recent BMJ published study, which did outline that the introduction of minimum unit pricing in Scotland was associated with a 6.2 per cent drop in alcohol consumption and that one in 20 of the heaviest drinking men had not been affected (”Leave alcohol taxes alone until the hangover clears from minimum unit pricing – Cutting alcohol excise or raising levies will make it harder to judge if minimum unit pricing has actually worked “, Business, Caveat, August 26th).
Early research from Wales, which introduced minimum unit pricing in 2020, also indicates the efficacy of the measure.
Minimum unit pricing is a public health measure within the Public Health Alcohol Act. It was enacted by the Oireachtas to address the widespread availability of cheap alcohol and so reduce whole-of-population alcohol use and related harm. The implementation of such an evidence-based, public health policy approach to address the drivers of alcohol demand clearly does not sit well in some quarters. This is especially so for those who stand to lose by the full implementation of the measures that aim to reduce Ireland’s alcohol use by 20 per cent and so improve some of the most egregious effects of alcohol use.
To seek to establish some equivalence between the voice of public health advocates and those of the alcohol industry, is wholly inaccurate. Our interest, for instance, is not a private, pecuniary interest whose insatiable appetite for revenue, and discount of science, seems to know no limit, but instead one that plainly seeks to reduce alcohol harm throughout society and improve public health. Our call for a budget alcohol-harm levy on all alcohol sales is not to add a further tax on the consumer, but to establish a means of funding from the profiting industry to adequately address the impact of the harm from their product. There will be no hangover from the success of such a measure. – Yours, etc,
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EUNAN McKINNEY,
Head of Communications and Advocacy,
Alcohol Action Ireland
Dublin 7.
Sir, – The only people who should be advising Government on data related to the evaluation of minimum unit pricing are the Health Research Board (which has a delegated role in the collection of statistics on addiction treatment) and the Chief Medical Officer’s office (whose job it is to advise Government on matters pertaining to public health). Credible voices are needed and these credible voices have served us well.
Due to the relative inelasticity of alcohol sales, a long period of maintained and inflation-proofed intervention is also necessary. The media should not fixate on a mere three years of observational data despite this research appearing promising. It took eight years to see a correlated and substantial decrease in alcohol mortality in British Columbia. As the data is observational it will be prone to potentially pernicious methods of the lobbying-consultancy industrial complex.
Alcohol lobbyists met with officials on 361 occasions during the 108 days when the Dáil was in session in 2018 at the time of the enactment of the Public Health Alcohol Bill. Some lobbying on alcohol is important, particularly that which increases transparency. You can be certain the medical profession, as influential as it can be, didn’t have the means to execute this level of access. This is the level of power that the alcohol industry has. The industry is on our screens every day, and we bring our children to events branded by alcohol. The alcohol industry is everywhere all of the time.
The programme for government promotes a health-led approach to addiction: minimum unit pricing is a small but necessary part of that. – Yours, etc,
Dr EMMET POWER,
Clinical Research Fellow,
Department of Psychiatry,
RCSI University of Medicine & Healthcare Science,
Dublin 2.