Scots alcohol sales fall to lowest level on record
● 19 units sold per person per week ● Deaths related to drink are still rising
Deaths from alcohol in Scotland remain on the rise despite sales falling to the lowest level for almost a quarter of a century.
The equivalent of 19 units per person per week were sold last year – the lowest figure since recording began in 1994. But the equivalent of 22 Scots still died from alcohol-specific causes each week, with the rate having risen for men and women since 2012.
Alcohol sales in Scotland fell to the lowest level for almost quarter of a century last year, new research has found.
The total volume of pure alcohol sold per adult in 2018 was 9.9 litres – the equivalent of 19 units per person per week.
The figures from the Monitoring and Evaluating Scotland’s Alcohol Strategy (MESAS) programme were the lowest since recording began in 1994.
But deaths from alcohol are still on the rise, with the NHS Health Scotland report showing 1,120 deaths in 2017 were “wholly attributable to alcohol” – the equivalent of 22 people dying each week. The rate of deaths from alcohol-specific causes has risen for both men and women since 2012 – with these “consistently higher” than in England and Wales.
In 2017, just less than a quarter (24 per cent) of adults in Scotland reported drinking fewer than 14 units of alcohol a week – the amount classed as “low risk” – down from 34 per cent in 2003.
Across the country last year, a total of 44.7 million litres of pure alcohol were purchased – with almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of sales made via supermarkets and off-sales and the remaining 27 per cent in pubs, clubs and restaurants.
Although sales fell north of the border, the volume of pure alcohol sold per adult in Scotland was still 9 per cent higher than England and Wales for 2018. It was the smallest difference since 2003, however, with sales per adult rising in England and Wales between 2017 and 2018.
A total of 23,494 people in Scotland were admitted to hospital with an alcohol related diagnosis in 2017-18.
With some people being admitted more than once, there were 35,499 alcoholrelated inpatient stays.
Despite a downward trend since 2007-08, rates of alcohol-related hospital stays remained four times higher than they were in the early 1980s, the report said.
People from the most deprived areas were more than eight times more likely to need admitting to hospital because of alcohol than those in the most affluent parts of Scotland.
Meanwhile, the poorest parts of Scotland had alcohol death rates that were more than seven times higher than those in the least deprived communities.
With minimum pricing coming into effect in May 2018, less than a quarter (23 per cent) of all alcohol sold in shops and supermarkets last year cost less than 50p per unit – down from 47 per cent in 2017.
But in England and Wales more than two-fifths (42 per cent) of all alcohol sold in offsales cost less than this price point.
There’s no denying that Scotland has a drink problem. Official health service advice is that people should not drink more than 14 units of alcohol a week. In Scotland last year, the average person bought 19 units a week. This statistic may be shocking to some, but it is actually good news as it’s the lowest figure since records began in 1994.
For some, the figures are a sign that the controversial introduction of minimum unit pricing for alcohol last year may be having an effect. If so, only time will tell whether it
is a sustained one, but harnessing market forces in this way can sometimes achieve significant societal change, as plastic bag charges have demonstrated.
Dr Lewis Morrison, of BMA Scotland, said it was “extremely encouraging” to see results like this in the first year of minimum pricing, saying he hoped the country was at the beginning of a “substantial change in Scotland’s damaging relationship with alcohol”. Given the number of deaths that are “wholly attributable” to alcohol is still rising – with 1,120 in 2017 – that is surely a sentiment we can all share.