Vox Pop: Will minimum alcohol prices reduce teen drinking?

YES
Paul Tuhoy, chief executive, Mentor
Minimum pricing has a key role to play in reducing consumption of alcohol but it’s not the only solution. Mentor believes every child in the UK is entitled to excellent education around alcohol.

We believe this education should come from parents, through schools and be reinforced by the wider community through social norms and a perception of what is acceptable behaviour.

What messages are we sending to children when alcohol can be purchased so cheaply?


NO
Gary Lovatt, director, Social Sense Ltd
I don’t think it will make any difference.

The proposal ignores the real issues of why teenagers are drinking. We still have aggressive advertising to young people, we still have soaps such as Coronation Street showing people drinking in the pub seven days a week – portraying a cultural norm that doesn’t exist – and we still thrive on the myth that all teenagers are drinking when our data tells us that 83 per cent of young people rarely or never drink alcohol.

We have evidence that for the teenagers who are drinking, more than two thirds are getting alcohol from parents –in most cases consensually. Peer pressures and social norms are still the biggest factors in alcohol consumption, so we would urge governments to focus on early intervention and prevention.


YES
Tom Smith, policy programme manager, Alcohol Concern
International evidence shows us that there is a clear link between alcohol consumption and price. We know that young people and heavy drinkers are particularly sensitive to price and this targeted measure is designed to help protect these groups from alcohol harm.

In a recent survey by Alcohol Concern and Balance, the North East of England’s Alcohol Office, we spoke with 1,000 young people who told us that price affects the way they drink, and that cheap promotions encourage drinking to get drunk.

We have a situation where young people are telling us it’s cheaper to get drunk than go to the cinema.

NO
Kayla Philpot, 18, Essex, member of the UK Youth Parliament
The price of alcohol won’t stop young people drinking, they will still find a way to afford it.

It is not the price of alcohol that needs adjusting but the education to teach young people about the effects of it. If people did not make drinking such a taboo for teenagers, then they would not feel the need to go out and drink so much.