As Nicola Sturgeon prepares to exit stage right, she’s been reeling off her greatest hits. Things she thinks she’s done to leave her mark on Scotland. She was helped this week by a study published in the Lancet. It claimed that her minimum unit pricing policy (where alcohol must be sold for at least 50p per unit) has reduced alcohol-related mortality by 156 deaths per year. That’s a reduction of 13 per cent. Impressive. But is the data really so clear cut?
The outgoing First Minister shared a headline about the government funded study which read ‘Minimum pricing averts alcohol deaths’. She was proud:
Looking back on my years in [government] this is one of the policies I’m proudest of. It was controversial and difficult but I’m glad we persevered to overcome all the political and court challenges because, as this study suggests, it is saving lives.
But what she conveniently leaves out is that booze deaths in Scotland are still rising.
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