Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

Any chance of it being scrapped? Cost of living is this country is out of control and all is see is ever increasing prices across the board. Todays example is car insurance and the injuries board is looking to increase payouts by 17%.

Off to Spain Saturday and note in the LIDL closeby the following offers:

• 8 x 500mL Perlenbacher pils 5eu
• Cororna 75c a bottle
• 24 x 33cc Mahau lager 14.50eu
• Cepa Lebrel Rioja 2eu a bottle (8eu or so here)
• Libertaria Tempranillo 0.63c a bottle

I heard Pascal Donoghue on with Ivan Yeats this morning talking about the budget.

Pascal only seems to think in units of 1000 euros. "We might leave the college fee at 2000, or we might change it to 3000, it's undecided".

I'll admit he has been a great financial minister and fiscal leader, but for many people around the country, a 1000 euro difference is life changing. You cant suddenly up a fee by 1K and expect no-one will notice.

Any chance of it being scrapped?

Not until I am crowned the New King of Ireland. Any new source of tax, politicians love. As has been for centuries. Millenia even.

In 1197, Alexios III Angelos tried to tax residents of Constantinople to come up with money to pay protection money to Henry VI. Funnily enough the now Turks rebelled against the idea.

The Turks rebel better than the Irish. #Unpopular-Opinion

At a time of any political strife, its the job of the opposition to make the feelings of the people known, and Eoin O'Broin of SF seems to get the needs of houseless people. Unfortunately, I dont know who was lobbying them, but when it came to MUP, both opposition and Government were in agreement.

I know.

Which politically speaking means it makes even less sense for it to have universal support by both the sitting government and the opposition.

The cynic in me might wonder if they have all been handsomely lobbied, if you know what I mean.

I'm on the anti alcohol side and even I'm confused.

What level of consumption is required that minimises economic damage whilst getting the most possible improvements with regards to heath? There is literally no answer to that question - how long is a piece of string?

Figuring that out now.

Seriously, who gets value out of putting these bots out - on boards no less?

The answer is - less consumption.

Whilst I agree with you. I have the position of 'health over economics at any cost whatsoever'.

I would get rid of smoking/vaping completely, heavily restrict alcohol, restrict/remove junk food and completely focus on public transport/cycling etc (probably decimating the motor industry and damaging the insurance industry too).

Most people are not like me and seek a balance between public health and economics.

Vaping is certianly on their agenda too, funnily, there is nothing other than opinion to suggest it causes any damage, not one single completed study into vaping effects has shown any definitive proven a link to ill health but that doesn't slow them at all, even worse now they have some suggesting smoking is actually favourable over vaping, wtf? one has a proven link to cancer, the other is still theoretical.

Not saying Vaping isn't damaging just that they refuse to let the fact get in the way of a good witch hunt.

Well if nicotine in cigarettes is bad then I imagine since its in vapes then its bad - thats getting off topic anyhow.

The idea would be to prevent people trying bad substances in the first place - not 'its only x percent' therefore its okay (including alcohol here).

The issue is any proposed restrictions is instantly met with 'nanny state', 'buzzkill', 'miserable b*stards' etc.

"Their"? Who is this "their" exactly and what do they want? From my pov its a healthier society but apparantly can't get in the way of people having the choice to ingest substances which are known to be literal poisen to the human body.

My original post was explaining my position with regards to the should-be balance (or lack there of) between public health and economics.

Nicotine by itself is not the worst thing in cigarettes, its all the chemicals such as arsenic and formaldehyde etc added into them that is then coupled with the addictive nature of the nicotine. That is why vaping was touted as "healthier", while that is i suspect partly true its mainly because smoking is fvcking awful for but it doesnt mean vaping is off the hook as not being bad for you, we're only just at the point where research is starting to produce results and id wager it will absolutely cause issues.

But again I would point out prohibition of any substance once the horse has bolted like it has with cigarettes, drugs, alcohol and now vapes is not viable and never has been in all of human history, in fact it usually has led to worse health outcomes when production is pushed underground without any regulations whatsoever like with 1920's alcohol prohibition or the recent frequent seizures of black market cigarettes.

If anything prohibition is akin to putting your head in the sand and saying "well its illegal so now that problem is solved".

My point is the Government and certaing self appointed interests are using 'pseudo' statistics to justify their position, trouble is their 'assertatinos are promarily based on opinion, not statistical fact, it's easy to see the MUP is a failure everywhere it's been trialled and the same goes for prohibition.

Water, glycol and glycerin have been around for donkeys years, you can get 0 nicotene vapes btw, vaping isn't new either, it was a thing before the gum.

The fact remains they are touting 'facts' that aen't genuine, just like MUP being an effective strategy against over consumption.