Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

My mother smoked in her 20's. She gave up at some point before she had me. All she ever said on the subject of smoking was "If you don't start, you don't have to give up".

That was it, that one line said once was all she ever said on the matter of smoking.

Sometime in my early 20's I started smoking, and I gave up around 27. Hardest thing I'd done in my life. I really wish she had sat me down and explained how addictive nicotine is. How it can creep up on you and before you know it, you're on 20 a day.

I absolutely agree with @Large bottle small glass. There should be much more focus on education of both alcohol and nicotine.

That was probably too cheap. MUP should be capped a 1 euro for a can of say heineken or coors. Most people would agree that is a sensible price point.

Who are all these people that agree that a euro is a sensible artificially increased price for a beer?

Your arguement for tobacco is not a great one considering the stench of smokes and vapes around some parts of the city center so education isn't clearly working.

See my post above. What education has been tried around smoking? "Smoking causes cancer" warning labels, but when you are 16, 17 18 you think you are bullet proof, so those warnings go on deaf ears.

So what if a black market develops?? Someone might try something off it and get a health scare after a reaction to something bad/laced and ultimatly end up prompting them to quit.

Or they could die, or go blind. You're right, so what!

You summed up what we are doing wrong in your post.

Ireland's alcohol consumption was declining before MUP

I think most people on this thread would accept that as fact.

What is your reasoning that it "could easily rise again"?

Drinking levels have been consistently falling for the past 20 years and continue to do so. You give the comparison with the amount of people who smoked back in the day, look at the amount of people that smoke now, drastically reduced from even when I was growing up.

Very very few young people can afford or want to go to the pub drinking every evening. It's on the decline and that won't change.

"I wouldn;t call it propaganda……………yes some claims may be overexaggerated in order to stop people trying it but the basis of the statements are still true"……….which is known in the business as 'propaganda'.

If you have to lie (overexaggerating is a form of deliberate lying) to persuade people to join your cause, you are being intellectually dishonest and your entire cause is suspect from the get go.

Yep, they wouldn't charge us £9.95 for a wrap ;)

It was brought in like a trojan horse; under false pretenses.

It's supposedly aimed at reducing problem drinking. Like your friendly neighbourhood dipso is gonna start drinking 4 flagons instead of 6 because they cost more. In all probability, it just means his wife/kids have less money to go towards the rest of the household. It also makes it less likely that he'll buy Linden Village when it costs the same now as a bottle of cheapo vodka.

The govt is happy because VAT intake goes up. VFI is happy because it's dearer to drink at home now, they only give a monkeys about excessive consumption when it happens outside their own premises. Retailers are happy because they now have an unofficial, government-backed cartel who are price-fixing a product and they get to keep 100% of the extra profits.

Everyone's a winner, except for me you and Seán Q Taxpayer who gets rinsed every time he goes to have a gargle at home after being fleeced at every available opportunity throughout the day.

Same with the 10pm curfew. Same with the 'no happy hour' rules. All smoke and mirrors to hide the real goal of filling the pubs back up again.

The outcome of the legislation has already been pre-determined, also. You can bet your bollocks that if alcohol consumption goes down, this will be hailed as a huge success and further expansion of the scheme will be seen as the way forward. If the reverse happens, and there's no decrease, you can bet your bollocks again that the hand-wringing fun-police will be out in force, shouting from the ditches about how it needs to be expanded anyway to make sure it works.

Heads they win, tails you lose.

Every fcuking time.

Absolutely anyone arguing MUP is going to help problem drinkers and alcoholics doesn't understand anything about how addiction works. Increasing prices only hurts the people closest to the alcoholics it doesn't stop them drinking.

I would also guess that even if we see a drop in consumption they will look to increase MUP as they will argue well its worked at this rate so increasing it more will make it work even better, so no matter what they will always argue for alcohol to be more expensive because their ultimate goal is effectively a form of prohibition and anyone denying this is childishly naive.