On minimum pricing

Public Health Scotland have said that minimum pricing 'works'. Not a great surprise coming from a government public health agency when the government needs something to get one of its flagship policies through the sunset clause, but not consistent with PHS's own evaluation.

I've written about this for The Critic...

 

It was perhaps inevitable that a government-funded public health agency would find in minimum pricing’s favour. Minimum pricing is a flagship policy for the Scottish Government and the public health lobby is keen for it to be rolled out to other countries (Wales already has it, and it didn’t work there either). But it is a shabby end to an evaluation process that has cost a great deal of money and has been impressive in its breadth and depth. Taken together, the reports give a good impression of what has happened in Scotland under minimum pricing. Most of it is rigorous and impartial. Much of it supports the common sense criticisms of the policy made by sceptics before it was introduced. To make the case for minimum pricing, you would have to pretend that most of it doesn’t exist, and so that’s what Public Health Scotland have done.

 

Read it all.

 

I was on BBC Scotland this morning from 9am. It was an interesting hour of radio as it slowly dawned on the presenter that in the world of 'public health' doublethink, minimum pricing can reduce the number of alcohol-related deaths by 13% but the number of alcohol-related deaths can be at an 11 year high.