The Great Debate UK

from The Great Debate:

Why does Warren Buffett hate oenophiles?

By David White The opinions expressed are his own.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway recently purchased Tennessee's largest alcoholic beverage distributor. This move comes just months after Berkshire Hathaway also acquired liquor distributors in Georgia and North Carolina.

This is a bad sign for consumers. It's yet more proof that America's anachronistic system of alcohol distribution is here to stay. This system -- which exists only because of government regulations -- stifles consumer choice and keeps prices artificially high.

The laws that keep consumers away from alcohol date back to prohibition. When the "Noble Experiment" was repealed in 1933, states were given the power to regulate alcohol within their borders. Some chose to take over the sale and distribution of alcohol. But just about every other state created a "wholesale tier" to sit between producers and consumers.

In part, this was at the urging of temperance activists and retailers. Prohibitionists blamed producers for all the ills associated with drunkenness. Restaurants and liquor stores didn't like the power that producers could wield. By creating a middle tier, lawmakers hoped to weaken the influence of brewers and distillers. Instead, they simply made wholesalers incredibly powerful.

Southern Wine and Spirits, America's largest liquor distributor -- and one of the nation's largest private companies -- had revenues of nearly $8.5 billion in 2008.

When is the cost of drinking alcohol too high?

- John A. Cunningham is Canada research chair in brief interventions for addictive behaviours, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and a professor at the University of Toronto. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Whether you live in Britain, Canada, the U.S. or one of many other countries around the world, alcohol consumption is one of the leading causes of preventable death.

When people think about alcohol problems, the image of someone with severe drinking problems usually comes to mind.

However, one of the interesting facts about alcohol is that people with less severe drinking problems cause most alcohol-related problems in society.

This is because there are a lot of people with moderate drinking problems while those with severe alcohol dependence are relatively rare. Problem drinking comes in many shapes and sizes – from someone who misses work because of hangovers, gets into a fight while drunk, drinks before driving, or simply drinks too much year after year and causes long term health concerns.

One of the issues that troubles me about providing help for people who have problems with alcohol is that most do not get treatment, including Alcoholics Anonymous.

That is why I devised online screener www.CheckYourDrinking.net. The Check Your Drinking screener is a free, anonymous tool which anyone can use. Simply go online, answer some questions about drinking and a bit about who you are and get a personalized feedback report.

from UK News:

Raising the price of alcohol

Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson has recommended that the government should sharply raise the price of alcohol  to try to combat Britain's chronic drinking problem.

His annual report calls for a minimum price of 50 pence per unit of alcohol sold, which would nearly double the price of some discount beer and wine. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have also shown interest in minimum pricing.

But the government is under no obligation to accept any such recommendation and is aware of the unpopularity of raising alcohol prices in a recession and not so far away from a general election.

Gordon Brown rejected the proposal outright.

The Conservatives say it is important to deal with people's attitudes to drinking, not just supply and price, while the Liberal Democrats support putting an end to "pocket-money priced" alcohol.

What do you think? Does price play much of a part in Britain's binge-drinking culture?