Beware of nanny-staters bearing statistics.
“Stockwell said the major finding was that increased minimum alcohol prices were associated with immediate, substantial and significant reductions in wholly alcohol attributable deaths, with a 10 price rise followed by a 32 percent death rate drop.”
The real problem this causes: when prices are prohibitive to addicted drinkers, they will turn to unregulated (illegal) and dangerous sources of alcohol. Moderate drinkers wil simply cut back. I am reminded of a quote from an alcoholic: “When ya get dry, ya start movin’ things!”
Let’s add another point. Even if the study were valid, it is our business as individuals to make our lifestyle decisions until and unless we harm others. And unless everyone else is paying the tab, the government has no business in our business — oh, dang it, DemBamaCare, NHS, single-payer — h’m.
In 1954 “How to Lie with Statistics” by Darrell Huff was published. It was widely read at the time. It has become one of the best-selling statistics books in history, with over one and a half million copies sold in the English-language edition.
“It also shows how statistical graphs can be used to distort reality, for example by truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart, so that differences seem larger than they are, or by representing one-dimensional quantities on a pictogram by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes, so that the reader forgets that the images do not scale the same way the quantities do.” (from the Wiki article)
It became a de facto manual for misusing statistics for rhetorical purposes.
The population in general STILL doesn’t get it.
They don’t understand much about addiction or binge drinking, do they? If increasing the price reduces the number of users, then no one would be smoking. My observations have been the price might deter the casual drinker or reduce his consumption, but it will have little affect on the folks who are going to die from drinking.
It’s nonsense of course. http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/minimum-pricing-lying-with-statistics.html