Royal College of Physicians: Alcohol Health Alliance responds to the Alcohol Commission (Scotland) conclusions

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 12:00 AM

Responding to the report of the Alcohol Commission (Scotland), Karishma Chandaria, Policy Advisor to the Alliance said:
'The Alcohol Health Alliance (UK) is hugely disappointed that the Alcohol Commission, while acknowledging the link between alcohol price and consumption, has decided to reject minimum unit price as a policy option in favour of a ban on low cost selling. Banning below cost selling will miss most of the current heavy discounting that is fuelling the damage to the nation's health. Reducing harm will only be achieved through a price rise which brings up the cost of the lowest priced products. Minimum pricing is the simplest, most effective means by which alcohol pricing can be controlled and regulated.'

Notes to editors

. The Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA) UK is a ground-breaking coalition of 24 organisations whose mission is to reduce the damage caused to health by alcohol misuse and who are working together to highlight the rising levels of alcohol-related health harm, propose evidence-based solutions to reduce this harm and influence decision makers to take positive action to address the damage caused by alcohol misuse. It is administered by the Royal College of Physicians and all media inquiries can be fielded through the RCP press office by calling Linda Cuthbertson, Frank Soodeen and Zoe Horwich on 0203 075 1254, 0203 075 1468 or 0203 075 1354 respectively. More details on the organisation's membership and current priorities can be found here: http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/professional-Issues/Public-Health/Pages/Alcohol.aspx

. A copy of the AHA Briefing, On Minimum Pricing for Alcohol can be downloaded here: http://wwtpw.rcplondon.ac.uk/About-the-college/work-with-us/Documents/Policy%20Briefing%20%20Aug%2009%20-%20Min%20pricing%20for%20alcohol.pdf

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