Price of booze must go up if we are to tackle the problem of binge drinking, says Tim Lang
We who debate the fat tax idea are having an interesting time. Everyone agrees taxing fat per se is hard, not least since it is in so many foods; and how to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' fats?
Yet the ubiquity of cheap, high calorie foods and drinks is an issue that just won't lie down. Rather like the impact of cheap credit on the economy until recently, the cheapness of inappropriate calories has a deeply distorting effect on food culture. It reframes demand, and takes little account of the ill-health costs that follow. Market fundamentalists argue this doesn't matter. It's a choice; if people ignore the advice, it's for them to pay. Except, as we now know from the collapse of the financial bubble, we all end up paying - some more than others.
Actually, 'fat taxes' cover a range of ideas. Last December, Governor Paterson of New York State proposed an 18% sales tax on non-diet soft drinks and fruit juices containing less than 70% natural fruit. He wanted to fill a hole in the state budget, but also to rein in unhealthy behaviour. This is the taxing public 'bads' to encourage public 'goods' argument. Last week, however, Paterson dropped the proposal, to the relief of the American Beverage Association at not adding to New Yorkers' "financial burdens during these tough economic times".
Then this week, our chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson floated the idea of price baseline for alcoholic drinks, linking some being astonishingly cheap to Britain's binge drinking culture. Only three days earlier I was at a Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh conference listening to papers exploring the fiscal options about what to do. Public health professions today have better evidence and shorter fuses. How long do we accept commercial gain breeding collective pain before saying 'enough!'?
Sir Liam's minimum price idea has elicited familiar reactions. Critics tell him to stick to medicine, as though this isn't at the heart of public health! It's an infringement of liberty, nanny statism, market distortion, they say. But the fact is, cheap take-away alcohol is so blindingly obviously linked to excess, and alcohol abuse puts such high costs on the NHS (£2.7bn a year in England alone), that shop prices simply ought to go up. Admissions to hospitals for alcohol have doubled in the last ten years.
Retailers are running out of wriggle room.
Tim Lang is professor of food policy at City University. t.lang@city.ac.uk.
We who debate the fat tax idea are having an interesting time. Everyone agrees taxing fat per se is hard, not least since it is in so many foods; and how to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' fats?
Yet the ubiquity of cheap, high calorie foods and drinks is an issue that just won't lie down. Rather like the impact of cheap credit on the economy until recently, the cheapness of inappropriate calories has a deeply distorting effect on food culture. It reframes demand, and takes little account of the ill-health costs that follow. Market fundamentalists argue this doesn't matter. It's a choice; if people ignore the advice, it's for them to pay. Except, as we now know from the collapse of the financial bubble, we all end up paying - some more than others.
Actually, 'fat taxes' cover a range of ideas. Last December, Governor Paterson of New York State proposed an 18% sales tax on non-diet soft drinks and fruit juices containing less than 70% natural fruit. He wanted to fill a hole in the state budget, but also to rein in unhealthy behaviour. This is the taxing public 'bads' to encourage public 'goods' argument. Last week, however, Paterson dropped the proposal, to the relief of the American Beverage Association at not adding to New Yorkers' "financial burdens during these tough economic times".
Then this week, our chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson floated the idea of price baseline for alcoholic drinks, linking some being astonishingly cheap to Britain's binge drinking culture. Only three days earlier I was at a Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh conference listening to papers exploring the fiscal options about what to do. Public health professions today have better evidence and shorter fuses. How long do we accept commercial gain breeding collective pain before saying 'enough!'?
Sir Liam's minimum price idea has elicited familiar reactions. Critics tell him to stick to medicine, as though this isn't at the heart of public health! It's an infringement of liberty, nanny statism, market distortion, they say. But the fact is, cheap take-away alcohol is so blindingly obviously linked to excess, and alcohol abuse puts such high costs on the NHS (£2.7bn a year in England alone), that shop prices simply ought to go up. Admissions to hospitals for alcohol have doubled in the last ten years.
Retailers are running out of wriggle room.
Tim Lang is professor of food policy at City University. t.lang@city.ac.uk.
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