Lib Dem support for alcohol awareness week

11.50.58am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 6th Oct 2008

Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson Ross Finnie MSP has marked alcohol awareness week by urging the Scottish Government to launch a new alcohol awareness and education campaign.

Mr Finnie believes that this campaign should include new information about how many units we are drinking, particularly given the changes in alcohol strength and the new, larger measures that have become the norm for Scottish bars and pubs since the unit scheme was first launched.

Commenting, Mr Finnie said:

“I am today calling on the Government to mark alcohol awareness week by accepting the Liberal Democrat proposal for a new awareness campaign.

“The alcohol strength of drinks has changed and the size of glasses has also changed. It makes sense, therefore, for information about safe drinking limits to change too. The units system was an excellent idea to inform the public about safe limits and responsible drinking. Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to update that information and launch a new awareness campaign.

“The BMA is calling for an updated labeling system for alcohol. Liberal Democrats support this call, but we believe that it should be backed up with a campaign that helps people easily work out how much they’re drinking. People should be able to buy a glass of wine and be confident that they know how many units are in that glass and how that relates to the safe drinking limit.

“The First Minister is plain wrong to say that those who rightly oppose

the Government’s misguided plan to raise the legal age for buying alcohol in shops to 21 haven’t proposed their own strategy to curb alcohol abuse. Back in June the Liberal Democrats proposed a 6 point plan to change Scotland’s lethal relationship with the bottle and today we have made a further proposal. The Government should back our plan.”