NHS Lanarkshire director of public health backs minimum alcohol pricing

Dec 31 2009 by John Rowbotham, Hamilton Advertiser

A TOP county doctor has backed the SNP Government policy on minimum alcohol pricing.

Dr Harpreet Kohli, NHS Lanarkshire’s director of public health, has supported the move in a letter to MSPs.

The letter was signed by 17 directors of public health from across Scotland.

Ministers believe that setting a minimum price for a unit of alcohol will help tackle Scotland’s cheap booze culture and improve health.

However, Opposition parties are against the move and fear it may harm the whisky industry.

It’s against this background that the public health directors have written to Labour, Lib-Dem and Conservative MSPs, urging them to reconsider their views.

NHS Lanarkshire have the third-highest alcohol-related death rate of all Scottish NHS boards, with around one-and-a-half times more people than the United Kingdom average losing their lives to alcohol.

The letter states: “Over the past 30 years in Scotland, our level of deaths directly caused by alcohol – conditions like alcoholic cirrhosis and alcoholic heart disease – has almost tripled. “One person in Scotland is dying every three hours of every day as a direct result of alcohol, many of them prematurely.

“Fifteen of the 20 local areas in the United Kingdom with the highest male alcohol-related death rates between 1998 and 2004 are in Scotland, and the top five are all Scottish, spread across from Inverclyde to Dundee.”

The letter adds that enough alcohol is bought in Scotland for each man and woman to be taking around 23 units a week, when recommended limits for health are 21 units for men and 14 units for women.

The letter says it’s estimated that the cost of alcohol misuse to Scottish society is at least £2.2bn, spread across employment, criminal justice, social care and health.

It is further believed that more than three in five murders are alcohol-related and almost half of prisoners say they committed their offence when drunk.

The letter continues: “Minimum pricing and reduced discounting are ways of reducing alcohol consumption that do not require the approval of the Westminster Parliament.

“For the sake of the health and social wellbeing of the people in Scotland, we encourage you to support these actions.”

However, Central Scotland Tory MSP Margaret Mitchell thought the public health director should stay out of the political arena.

She said Buckfast wine, often linked to disorder and yob behaviour in Lanarkshire, cost more than comparable products.

Yet the price did not appear to dissuade neds from buying it.

She added: “Minimum pricing would penalise responsible drinkers and would not have the desired effect.”