SMITH SUPPORTS ALCOHOL AWARENESS WEEK

4.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 6th Oct 2008

Liberal Democrat MSP for North East Fife, Iain Smith has marked alcohol awareness week by urging the Scottish Government to launch a new alcohol awareness and education campaign.

Mr Smith 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, Iain 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 labelling 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.

"Alcohol abuse can have devastating consequences for communities.

"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, which would make a real difference to people in North East Fife."

Ends.

Notes to Editors:

In June, the Liberal Democrats proposed action to tackle alcohol abuse, including:

A sustained government education/advertising campaign to challenge cultural norms on the dangers of alcohol misuse and the need for responsible drinking as recently supported by the NHS Health Scotland Report.

A crackdown on rogue retailers who continue to sell alcohol to minors. Liberal Democrats recently exposed that very few retailers caught selling alcohol to minors are prosecuted.

A supermarket summit to agree a strategy to curb the availability of cheap drink, to stop supermarkets to citing competition as an excuse for lowering the price of drink and to ensure that supermarkets adopt the responsible sale of alcohol as one of their corporate social responsibilities.

An end to the deep discounting and cheap promotions of alcohol products in all off sales premises utilising the provisions of the Licensing Act.

Compulsory labelling requirements for alcohol products instead of the current voluntary agreement with the drinks industry.

A reduction in the Drink Driving Limit to 50mg and random breath testing.