Coulter says Drink Tax Rise is on the cards
Rev Dr Robert Coulter, the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly member for North Antrim and UUP Stormont Commissioner, has said that a tax on alcohol would have to be seriously considered to help stem the binge drinking problem – especially with the festive Christmas season rapidly approaching.
Dr Coulter, the UUP’s Health Spokesman, added: “In the financial markets, a correction or downturn often occurs when credit is too easy and inflation threatens to get out of control.
“It is the same with the problem of binge drinking which, if it is allowed to continue unchecked, will lead to a major upsurge in liver disease, which is now affecting an increasing number of young people, especially young women.
“Alcoholic drinks are now too inexpensive and too readily available. So a correction will have to occur and the only way this can be brought about effectively is by an increase in taxation on drink with a high alcohol content.
“This is the viewpoint expressed recently in a report by the British Medical Association, which represents 139,000 doctors throughout the United Kingdom.
“This is not in the least surprising considering that drink-related illness is using up so much of the National Health Service budget. We simply cannot afford to allow the health of the nation to be undermined in this way.
“No one is saying that normal social drinking should be targeted. It is high alcohol level drinks which need to be targeted and, especially, the commercial practice in some public houses of selling drink and ‘shots’ in cut-price promotions to encourage binge drinking among young people must be outlawed. It is time to put a stop to this,” said Assemblyman Dr Coulter.