Alcohol Deaths in Scotland Rise to 14-year High

Undated photo of alcohol on shelves in a shop. Jane Barlow/PA

The number of alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland has reached a 14-year-high despite the government’s attempt to reduce it by setting a minimum unit price, according to official figures published on Tuesday.

It comes after the government altered a press release that said evidence “showed” the Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) policy had been effective in reducing alcohol deaths and hospitalisations to say the benefits were “estimated.”

A researcher critical of the MUP said the new death toll shows such population-level policies “rarely work.”

Scotland’s alcohol minister defended the policy, saying she believes the number would have been higher without it.

In 2022, the number of alcohol-specific deaths rose to 1,276, or the highest level since 2008.

It has generally been on a steady upward trend for the last decade, with 2019 being a notable exception.

The number of male deaths remained unchanged from the previous year, at 836, and female deaths rose by 31 to 440.

Taking population size and age into consideration, alcohol-specific age-standardised mortality rate last year was 22.9 per 100,000 people, the highest level since 2009.

The number of alcohol-specific deaths registered in Scotland between 1979–2022. Data Source: National Records of Scotland

The death toll rose in spite of the government’s hope to reverse the trend with MUP that sets a minimum price of 50 pence per unit of alcohol.

The policy was implemented since May 1, 2018 to make alcohol less affordable, but alcohol-specific death only had a one-off drop in 2019 before returning to the previous trajectory.

Christopher Snowdon, research at free-market think tank Institute of Economic Affairs, said “population-level policies like minimum pricing rarely work.”

“We need to help the small minority of people who drink very large quantities of alcohol,” he said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

“There are usually psychological reasons for alcohol dependency and treatment can be expensive and difficult but it does work,” Mr. Snowdon said.

“One of the reasons the number of alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic is that dependent drinkers found it difficult to access face-to-face treatment.”

Undated photo of Scotland's Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy Elena Whitham. Jane Barlow/PA

Speaking to journalists after the figure was released on Tuesday, alcohol minister Elena Whitham insisted that she believes MUP has prevented some deaths.

“We know that the evaluation from Public Health Scotland shows that there has been an estimated hundreds of people whose lives have been saved by minimum unit pricing,” the minister said, referring to a report published on June 27.

“Those are really positive measures, but I think if we didn’t have minimum unit pricing in place, I think that the deaths that we would be seeing today would have been higher,” she said.

Laura Mahon, deputy chief executive of the charity Alcohol Focus Scotland, also believes the death toll would be higher without MUP. She called on the government to further increase the MUP to 65 pence to catch up with inflation in a press release.

Altered Statement

The Public Health Scotland (PHS) report mentioned by the alcohol minister was a synthesis of 40 studies. It said there had been “strong evidence” that MUP reduced deaths wholly attributable to alcohol consumption although there may have been a small increase in alcohol-related acute deaths.

With regards to hospital admissions, the report said there had been “strong evidence” that MUP reduced admissions due to chronic causes that were wholly attributable to alcohol consumption and some evidence of an increase in wholly attributable admissions due to acute causes.

A government press release about the report said at the time, “In their final report of a series, researchers said that ‘robust, independent evaluation’ and the best-available, wide-ranging evidence drawing on 40 independent research publications, showed that MUP has been effective in its main goal of reducing alcohol harm with the reduction in deaths and hospital admissions specific to the timing of MUP implementation.”

But the claim was disputed by critics who said only one of the 40 studies suggested that MUP had reduced alcohol-related deaths and only eight presented evidence of alcohol-related health outcomes.

On Aug. 21, the government altered the press release, removing reference to the 40 studies and changing “showed” to “estimated.”

The press release now reads, “In their final report, researchers said that after a robust and independent evaluation, their overall conclusion is that MUP has been effective in its main goal of reducing alcohol harm with an estimated reduction in deaths and hospital admissions specific to the timing of MUP implementation.”

According to a statement published on Tuesday, PHS has also altered its “evaluation findings at a glance” document that summarised findings of its report to make clear the stated benefits were estimated in light of feedback from the UK Statistics Authority.

PHS maintains that overall evidence supports that MUP has had a positive impact on health outcomes and there’s “no clear evidence of substantial negative impacts on the alcoholic drinks industry, or of social harms at the population level.”

Draft Reports

The PHS report also reportedly incorporated feedback from civil servants before it was published.

According to The Times of London, draft versions of the PHS report and email exchanges between PHS and the government obtained under freedom of information legislation show PHS sent drafts to the governement looking for feedback on “factual correction and policy usefulness,” and incorporated some suggestions from civil servants in the final version.

The report said one of the suggestions, which appears to have been adopted, is to describe the evidence that alcohol consumption had fallen after MUP’s introduction as being “strong.”

A Scottish government spokesman told the publication that the government’s preview of PHS report was “in line with well-established evaluation practices” and that PHS ultimately made the final judgment on what to include in their report.

Meanwhile, Ms. Whitham also said on Tuesday that a shelved plan to ban alcohol advertisements can’t be ruled out.

“I think we have to look and see what the evaluation of the responses tells us and then make a move from there,” she told reporters.

“But, clearly, as a public health minister, my focus is on that from a public health lens.”