Alcohol Units – Should There Be A Minimum Pricing For Alcohol? By David P Walker At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

The Chief Medical Officer recommended in early 2009 that alcohol should have a minimum price per unit. But what would that mean for UK drinkers?

Sir Liam Donaldson recommended that the minimum price for a unit of alcohol be raised to 50p, in an effort to try and reduce binge drinking in the UK. His recommendation was rejected by the Government but continues to be used by medical advisors and politicians as one of the answers to a growing social problem.

If enacted, minimum pricing would mean a 13% bottle of wine containing nine units of alcohol would be sold for a minimum of £4.50. It would also mark the end of supermarket promotions selling large amounts of alcohol at discounted prices.

Bars and pubs which currently promote happy hour offers, such as ‘all you can drink for £10’ and ‘women drink for free’ would also be affected. With alcohol having a minimum price of 50p per unit, a pint of beer with 3 units of alcohol would have to be sold for a minimum of £1.50 to comply with the rules.

What exactly is a unit?

With all this debate over alcohol units – we wanted to get to the bottom of what an alcohol unit actually is. When it comes to units, it would be easy to assume that one drink equals one unit, but unfortunately it’s not quite that simple. A unit is 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol. Therefore one unit of alcohol can be found in a 25ml single measure of whisky (ABV 40%), or a third a pint of beer (ABV 5-6%) or half a standard (175ml) glass of red wine (ABV 12%).

The current guidelines recommend that men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 alcohol units a day and that women should not regularly exceed 2-3 units a day. However, research shows that eight out of 10 people don't know the correct amount of units that are recommended in Government guidelines. This means that a large majority of drinkers may be exceeding government guidelines and binge drinking regularly, which can have a serious impact on health.

So is minimum pricing far away?

It is still not clear whether the Chief Medical Officer’s recommendations will ever come in to force and require each unit of alcohol to have a minimum pricing of 50p. Much of The Prime Minister’s reasoning for not taking on board the CMO recommendations was that it would be unfair on the majority of drinkers who drink alcohol in moderation.

A strong media interest in the minimum pricing debate ensures that the UK’s alcohol culture is still a hot topic for discussion.

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