The Toronto Star is looking to Scotland to teach it how to reduce alcohol-related deaths. In an article titled ‘How Scotland started to kick its alcohol problem — and what Ontario could learn from it’, it pushes back on plans to liberalise Ontario’s state monopoly on alcohol retail, saying:
Ontario officials say they are fulfilling a 2018 election promise to increase “choice and convenience for shoppers and support Ontario retailers, domestic producers and workers in the alcohol industry.”
But Scotland has cut alcohol-related hospital admissions by 40 per cent and deaths by almost half. While in Ontario, alcohol-related admissions have risen by a third and deaths by almost half, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.
How did Scotland supposedly achieve this public health miracle?
The key part of Scotland’s landmark policy was aimed at reducing drinking by introducing minimum unit prices to make drinking more expensive.
Ontario
already has minimum pricing and Scotland doesn’t have a state alcohol
monopoly, so it is not obvious what lessons Ontarians are supposed to be
learning, but put that to one side for a moment and consider the main
claim.
Read the rest on my Substack.
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