Neither have any effect of someone drinking a skin full of Ace "cider" at home every night.

Yes.
I took the educated decision to stop my 10 year homely stint of supping vast amounts of 2 litre bottles of White Lightning.
I believe my liver is in remission.

No, but could enforcement and penalties have an effect on public drukenness?

Are you druke EB?

Absolutely. Try ing in the gutter and giving a rozzer abuse in your average town in Poland and see how you go on. Or even Spain, even if the police in the main resorts do hold back a little bit in deference to the tourist dollar.

Are you druke EB?

I think that would certainly play a role. I rarely see anyone be denied service until they are well and truly plastered. But then the bars, pubs and clubs in city centres on a Friday night are often far too busy and packed full for the poorly paid bar staff to notice who is drunk and who's not.

As mentioned by the elderly earlier on this thread a big part of the problem is the cheap spirits and alcopop type drinks. It takes a long time to get plastered on beer or lager simply because it takes a long time to drink that amount. With the spirits and alco pops that can be drunk as easily and quickly as lemonade you can down these drinks very quickly, without it seeming like you're drinking something strong, and then it catches up with you.

I'm not a drinker during the week but I love a good binge on a weekend. If I go to a party I quite like the idea that I can go and get my 20 cans from the Supermarket fairly cheaply. Why should I be forced to pay more? I'll tell you what, I could make my own and then they wouldn't be getting any tax from me.

Actually, I think you are one of the target markets that they are wanting to influence into drinking less.
I am not saying you are one of the ones who make a nuisance of themselves but the medics would say you are one of those who is harming themselves by bingeing.

Your contribution to this thread could be very useful in answering questions that have the older ones of us perplexed.

I'll kick off, if that's OK, ... do you think you are harming yourself by bingeing at weekends?

I'm one of those who would be hit in the pocket if minimum unit pricing came in. I enjoy my visits to the pub but if I drink at home I tend to drink Lidl's Graffenwalder. It's 4.8%,brewed to the Reinheitsgebot and costs 85p per 500ml can. If the 45p per unit was introduced, it would cost £1.08p. Now 23p is not a fortune but it would then be priced similarly to all the pi[is[/is lagers like: Carling, Carlsberg, Fosters etc

One thing that we should expect, now we've seen a row-back from minimum unit pricing, is an increase in excise duties way above inflation at next week's budget

I don't doubt the sincerity of doctors who want to redue alcohol consumption but to the government alcohol is a huge cash cow and they will milk it for whatever it's worth, just like petrol and tobacco.

They inherited the beer escalator, which automatically hikes the price of duty on beer above inflation every year, but they won't scrap it; why? not because of anything health related but because "revenue from alcohol plays a big part in helping them reduce the deficit".

(Even though in fact it causes them to actually lose overall revenue, and they are too stupid and perverse to see it, but that's a different issue.)

I do wonder how much of this idea was all about extra VAT.

I don't really see it like that. In the long run maybe I am, but I don't know how much longer that I plan to carry on in the same way. As I said I don't drink during the week so I hope that I am giving my organs enough time to recover. In the short term I might feel sick as a dog on Sunday morning but I soon get over that. I have never sought medical treatment on the NHS, I have never been arrested (did get a telling off for climing on a roof on the way home once) so I'm not costing the Gvt. any money. I'm putting more in than taking out with the booze prices going towards giving young people wages and the VAT and alcohol tax going to line the coffers of the exchequer.

I think this will make the problems worse. I go out regularly on a weekend, and pre-drink as drinks out are too expensive.

If my home drinks were more expensive (but still cheaper than when out), I reckon many people would drink even more when they go out, so as to spend even less when out. Potentially worsening the problem.

Plus, at least in my area, I regularly hear peoples excuse for using illegal substances is that its cheaper than alcohol, which is quite worrying and would only get worse IMO.

On the subject of cheap booze

The guy obviously has a serious problem, one that won't be helped by easy access to not just cheap booze but taxpayer-funded cheap booze. After his previous drunken assault he should've been put on Parliament's equivalent to Pubwatch and banned from all ares serving alcogol.

In another "you couldn't make it up" story rather than pay full whack for the (again) taxpayer-subsidised food & booze.