Scots are drinking more than is good for them

A Scottish charity is backing new proposals to curb alcohol advertising.

It comes as a quarter of Scots are drinking more than is good for them with 1, 190 alcohol-specific deaths registered in Scotland in 2020.

Public health minster Maree Todd has described current level of alcohol marketing in Scotland as “deeply troubling” and wants to reduce alcohol attractiveness.

The MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross said a consultation for numerous proposals would be carried out later this year including an increase in prices on alcoholic beverages. 

Chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, Alison Douglas encourages these new curbs to stop what has become a “normalisation of alcohol”.

She said: “This so-called alibi marketing is something that we’re really familiar with for years with tobacco.

“So we need restrictions that are comprehensive and don’t allow companies to do that.

“The message that we’re all taking from that is the normalisation of alcohol and the encouragement to consume alcohol.”

Douglas said that many young people and children are saying the advertising is affecting them.

She added: “If children are telling us it’s impacting them really we ought to be responding to that.”

“This isn’t about freedom of choice people will still have that choice what it is about is about preventing alcohol being forced upon us.

“If it’s protecting our most vulnerable, then surely it’s something worth pursuing.”