Health watchdog urges minimum price for alcohol

A minimum price for a unit of alcohol should be imposed to help combat Britain's rising scourge of alcohol abuse, a leading health watchdog said on Wednesday.

One in four men and women drink dangerous amounts of alcohol that could cause physical and mental damage, according to a report by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

As well as a minimum pricing policy, the watchdog recommends reducing the number of outlets selling alcohol in a given area as well as legal alcohol trading hours, to make it less readily available.

?Alcohol is much more affordable now than it ever has been, and the price people pay does not reflect the cost of the health and social harms that arise," said Professor Anne Ludbrook, a health economist from the University of Aberdeen who helped develop the NICE guidance.

?When it is sold at very low price, people often buy and then consume more than they otherwise would have done. It is a dangerous pattern which many people have unknowingly fallen into.?

Alcohol-misuse among young people is also addressed in the NICE guidance, which recommends screening people from the age of 16 for alcohol problems.

The number of alcohol-related deaths has more than doubled in the past 16 years, with more than 8,000 people dying of conditions such as alcohol poisoning and liver cirrhosis every year, according to NICE.

More than 100 studies show that increasing the price of alcohol will reduce levels of drinking and the harms associated with drinking, said Professor Ludbrook, speaking at the guidance launch in London.

?Increasing the price is likely to be the most cost-effective way of reducing drinking,? she said.

Researchers from the University of Sheffield, who worked on the economic model, found that introducing a minimum price of 50p per unit reduced alcohol consumption by 10.3 per cent among harmful drinkers and 3.8 per cent among moderate drinkers.

But Professor Mike Kelly, Director of Public Health at NICE, stressed that it was not the role of the Institute to set prices.

?What we do is review the evidence not specify a minimum price," he said. "The decision is one for Parliament and for ministers to take."

Professor Kelly believes the recommendations on minimum pricing "chime very well with those made by the Conservatives in their working paper" and he pointed to moves made in Scotland on minimum pricing.

He added: ?Alcohol misuse is a major public health concern which kills thousands of people every year and causes a multitude of physical, behavioural and mental health problems.

?What?s more it costs the NHS over £2 billion annually to treat the chronic and acute affects of alcohol -- this is money that could be spent elsewhere to treat conditions that are not so easily preventable."

Professor Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians and Chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said the recommendations were "reassuring".

"Week in, week out I see the burden of alcohol misuse in my clinics. There is not a family out there that has not been affected by it," Professor Gilmore said.

Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA) welcomed a potential ban on below cost sale of alcohol but said it remained opposed to a minimum pricing policy.

WSTA Chief Executive Jeremy Beadles said: "We do not believe that alcohol pricing and taxation provide the solution to alcohol misuse.

"What?s needed is education and rigorous enforcement of laws to address misuse and related anti-social behaviour."