You will have found it difficult recently to open a paper without reading of the damaging effects of alcohol misuse or of the Scottish government's proposals to combat these effects on Scottish society. The BMA fully supports the campaign to introduce minimum pricing of alcohol as one way of addressing Scotland’s destructive relationship with alcohol. This is not about addressing drunken yobs misbehaving in the street on Friday nights, but concerns a far greater problem affecting the whole population. Alcohol, compared to disposable income, has never been cheaper or more widely available. The BMA campaign, therefore, is just as much about pointing out the health risks of getting quietly inebriated in front of the television at home as it is about tackling the lager louts that hit the headlines.

Neither is tackling alcohol misuse about targeting a campaign at young people—although we do know that changing behaviour in childhood can have an impact on choices made in adulthood. Alcohol misuse transcends age groups and social groupings. A recent report on Alcohol and Aging published by Alcohol Focus Scotland reports that levels of alcohol consumption within the older population have been rising steadily over the past 20 years. Meanwhile surveys of children find that 13 and 15 year olds who report drinking consume, on average, 16 units and 18 units respectively in a week. This is a population-wide problem that requires a population-wide solution.

The facts speak for themselves:

In Scotland:
• Someone dies an alcohol attributable death every three hours
• Alcohol was a factor in 393,747 people attending A&E in 2007
• There were an estimated 111,200 GP consultations for alcohol misuse in the year 2006/07
• There has been a 400 percent rise in the number of people with liver disease since 1996
• In 2006/07, 1094 children (under the age of 18) were admitted to hospital with an alcohol related diagnosis

In addition, new research shows that alcohol costs Scottish taxpayers around £3.56 billion per year - around £900 per person. This study shows that the human cost of alcohol misuse is far greater than we had imagined, and there are gears that the increasing cost of treating the growing number of people drinking to excess could cripple the NHS. The financial burden is no longer sustainable and if this trend continues the service will struggle to cope.

There is no doubt that more needs to be done in the area of prevention, early interventions, and the provision of specialist services. However, while the NHS bears the burden of alcohol, there is a role for government to intervene and regulate the drinks industry.

Our legislators have tried restricting opening hours, they have tried health education, and labelling is now far more specific. All have failed. Alcohol is now part of the fabric of everyday life and supermarkets display a vast array of every type of alcohol making it as much part of the weekly shopping as bread, milk and vegetables.

More than a million people in Scotland are drinking hazardously or harmfully. Almost half of all alcohol-related deaths could have been prevented by lower alcohol consumption.

The most effective and evidence-based intervention to reduce consumption of alcohol is to tackle price and availability. Politicians have a central role in regulating the drinks industry and supermarkets to put an end to the ridiculous pricing of alcohol. By increasing price, we can reduce consumption and this in turn can prevent needless deaths. What does this mean for the average drinker? If, for example, minimum price is set at 40p per unit, then a moderate drinker can expect to pay an additional 11p per week.

Independent studies have shown that by introducing a minimum price for alcohol, Scotland could reduce these costs—in health, employment, crime—by around £950 million over ten years, and would reduce overall alcohol consumption, which in turn could help reduce the death toll from alcohol misuse.

Our campaign is not for alcohol to be unattainable but to stop supermarkets selling alcohol cheaper than water, which may be good for their trade, but bad for the health of our nation.