Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

But the price differential across the border in Ireland was substantial enough before MUP, and of course is a lot higher now on many drinks since MUP. Before MUP in Scotland there was no incentive to go to England to buy alcohol at all.

Remember our MUP level is set higher than Scotland's, our VAT rate is higher than NI (and rest of UK), our excise rate is a lot higher than NI (and rest of UK)

So MUP in Ireland took a situation where there was already an incentive to shop across the border and made that incentive bigger.

I can pop over the border in a few minutes, so that won't bother me.

Was it them who came up with the idea of the ration cards? Or where did that suggestion come from?

They don't give speeches or have policy positions on prohibition either, but don't let that hold back your wild leaps of imagination.

If you were right, they'd have left out the 'harm' bit.

But they didn't.

That's your words, not theirs. It's funny how with all the vast amounts of detailed papers and policies on their website, you have to go making stuff up about what they might want to do in the future to have something to moan about.

Again, your words and not theirs. They talk about 'society free from alcohol harm', no more and no less than that.

Nope, it's not out of thin air and frankly it is absurd to suggest that.It's on the continuum from the policies they have openly advocated for.

Likewise you also accuse me 'completely out of thin air' of lambasting them on this basis alone or directly attributing specific statements to them. How about pointing specifically to the post in which I did that- well?

And I don't think anyone who has actually read the posts on the thread could come out with a ridiculous example such as Jeffrey Epstein, when a similarly ridiculous comparison with Putin was already dealt with.

If an organisation or party started advocating for policies such as making abortions more difficult to access, and made no statement that they support abortion being legal in certain circumstances ... would it be out of thin air to question that they might be in fact ultimately set on trying to get abortion outlawed fully? Would it be illogical? Clearly not.

I am judging them exactly on what they have said AND what they have not said. Because what they have not said is directly relevant to their core area of policy. I attributed no direct statement to them NOR did I 'lambast' them specifically or solely for that. But it is reasonable to come to a conclusion about their stance and POV on an issue that directly relates to that core area.

Similarly if a manager is having a run of defeats, and the chairman \ board does NOT come out with public backing, it is entirely reasonable to conclude they they are considering the manager's position.

And as I've explained below:

Let us imagine a party which pitches itself as pacifist and in its agenda say it will cut military spending etc. It does not give any commitment to retain say a nuclear deterrent. Is a discussion that said party ultimately seeks to get rid of the nuclear deterrent based on 'rumours'? Would there be no basis for saying they plan to get rid of it? I think we can see such a standard would preclude debate of any political topic outside the present exact text of a party \ organisation's agenda or manifesto

The death penalty for having a pint is on the continuum from the policies they have openly advocated for. The only question is how far you want to leap from their actual policies to your imaginary policies.

I'm not an expert, but I'd like to see it at the level where it isn't accounting for vast amounts of hospital resources, particularly (but not limited to) emergency departments, and vast amounts of Gardai resources too.

But the latter issue around ER and Gardai resources can also be tackled by changing licensing to be less restrictive as in other european countries, so far all weve done is restrict licensing and sales and the problem of violence requiring those resources has if anything only gotten worse. However AAI are also against changes like extending hours or cafe licenses despite all available evidence showing they might very well have a positive impact. This shows clearly their fundamentalist attitude being simply "alcohol = bad".

Do you know who his dealers are, and whether they can be relied on to supply good cocaine?

I could certainly make a guess 😂

I was responding to the post that said there are going to be ration cards. Not just me, but thousands more could get round that by going over the border. It would also fail because people could pass on their purchases to others. Or they could hoard their purchases and then have binges. And it would probably need overall EU agreement to reduce the import limits currently in place.

Some of my other posts are pointing out the flaws in arguments claiming that MUP is going to lead to prohibition.