Minium pricing of alcohol has cost lives, experts warn
THE SNP’S controversial minimum price for alcohol has driven some vulnerable people to cheap street drugs which were linked to hundreds of deaths last year, experts have warned.
Among them are fatalities linked to benzodiazepines, which have soared fivefold to 191 since 2015. Also known as ‘street Valium’, they sell for as little as 20p a pill.
Minimum pricing, introduced in 2018, hiked the cost of super-strength ciders from £3.50 a bottle to up to £11.
David Liddell, chief executive of the Scottish Drugs Forum, said: ‘Some young people who may have been likely to drink cheap ciders seem to now be using socalled street Valium.
‘Our concern is that using street drugs is inherently dangerous and if people are using these and alcohol in combination the risk is raised again.’
Comedian Kevin Bridges yesterday called minimum pricing ‘a terrible policy’.
The Glasgow-based star, who has lost people to drug addiction, added: ‘No one was ever going to say, “Right, I can’t afford a bottle of cider so I will take up jogging”.
‘[People] will obviously seek other alternatives to obliterate their trauma.’