On 12 September Neil Gray MSP gave the ministerial statement on alcohol and drugs.
Dr Peter Rice, Chair of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP), a partnership of the medical royal colleges, commented:
“This week’s news that 2023 saw 1,277 people die as a direct result of alcohol should be the wake-up call that the Scottish Government needs to put in place a clear, coherent plan to deal with the ongoing alcohol public health emergency. Yet today’s statement did not have the urgency required if we want to see fewer people live in poor health for many years and for fewer people to die. Given the 40% drop in referrals to structured alcohol services over the past decade, we need to see protection of specialist alcohol services and for these services to be expanded and made far more accessible to people of all age groups, backgrounds and walks of life.
“The resumption of the Government’s work on alcohol marketing is welcome, but this is no more than a return to the point reached 18 months ago. I understand that the threat of legal challenges by industry leads to caution by governments as this is a well-worn tactic used by commercial interests, and this will be a factor in today’s decision. Even when the health case is won, as happened with Minimum Unit Price in Scotland, the “regulatory chill” effect still influences policy development, which is exactly the alcohol industry’s intention.
“The Public Health Scotland review of the evidence base will add to the work done by the World Health Organization (WHO) and governments around the world who have already restricted alcohol marketing. The WHO regards effective marketing regulation as a high impact strategy and countries such as Ireland, Norway and Lithuania have acted on this.
“The Government’s commitment to drawing on the best evidence is commendable but the only thing that will improve the health and wellbeing of people in Scotland is the translation of evidence into action.”