FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Stuff

Alcohol Sales Are Up in Scotland Because Everyone Keeps Buying Bottles of Vodka

News: Scotland buys way, way, way more alcohol than the rest of Britain.

(Photo via Edinburgh Greens)

For me Scotland isn't neeps and it isn't tatties and it isn't kilts and it isn't a load of Rangers fans drinking Bell's out of a big set of bagpipes, and it isn't Burns Night and it isn't The Proclaimers and it isn't any of that, it's three things, is Scotland: it's that time that bloke got his head stuck in a bin:

It's that time two young Cher Lloyd fans did a shit and didn't flush it, disgusting:

And it's that time I went to Scotland – beautiful country, gorgeous country, like someone put some prefabricated pubs up in Middle Earth – and got talking to a fisherman at his house, a fisherman drinking great tumblers of whiskey – I mean proper full-to-the-brim tumblers of whiskey, this man, this man's idea of a livener is enough to actually kill most people, I mean like a professional amount of whiskey, the amount of whiskey people drink in films when they murder someone for the first time and can't wash the blood from their souls – and his cat wandered in, one of many, and I said "what is your cat's name", because I deeply love cats, and he said, "oh, no they no have a name," and then he drank some whiskey and said, "I just call them all 'Puss'" and I am still in love with that: that a man can live a life surrounded by cats and yet not become attached to a single one of them, not do the most basic thing you do when you obtain a cat – name it, a sign of ownership – and instead let the cat roam, unshackled by the human conventions of having a name, just occasionally making a kissy sound when he wanted it to come in for dinner. Like: this cat was about 12 years old. In all that time – all that time – he'd never thought to give it a name. Not even once. Jerry. Donaghy. Lamper. Fitzy. None of those. Not a single name. Nothing. And that's Scotland.

Advertisement

So it's a country of multitudes. It's also a country where they buy, according to a new report that quotes figures my eyes can barely even believe, an absolutely staggering amount of alcohol.

New figures from NHS Health Scotland found the sales of alcohol in Scotland in 2015 was on the rise from the previous year, with the headline figure being that the alcohol equivalent of 41 bottles of vodka were sold per person in one year alone. That makes it 10.8 litres of pure alcohol per adult in the country, or 116 bottles of wine or 477 pints of beer a year; that's also up slightly from 10.7 litres per adult in 2014, and levels out at about 20.5 units per week – way over the government guideline that everyone ignores of 14. For context, those sales figures are 20% higher than sales in England and Wales, with Scotland having a particular thing for buying bottles of vodka from off licenses: they bought twice as much from offies than the rest of Britain. Cheap per unit alcohol prices in major supermarkets were also pointed out as being a driving force.

Obviously everyone's worried this means doom and death for Scotland, because I mean the science does rather indicate that if you drink 41 bottles of vodka every year then you will certainly die, with NHS Health Scotland's senior public health manager Dr Mark Robinson saying: "It is concerning that the recent falls in population alcohol consumption have reversed and that off-trade alcohol sales have reached their highest level.

Advertisement

"Trends in the price of alcohol sold by supermarkets and off-licences correspond with trends in the volume of alcohol sold by these retailers. Between 2009 and 2013, the average price of alcohol increased and consumption decreased. Since 2013, average price has flattened and consumption has increased.

"Higher levels of alcohol consumption result in higher levels of alcohol-related harm and these present a substantial public health and economic cost to Scotland." The prescription is: reduce the availability of low priced, high strength alcohol, and then everyone will stop getting drunk and hurting themselves and/or dying of alcohol related diseases.

Depending on what side of the fence you fall, this is either OTT nanny stateism – if I want to drink so much Buckfast I wet myself then I will, thank you, NHS Scotland! – or just some good old-fashioned actually quite decent public health advice with people's welfare in mind. One or the other. It can't be both. Will this stop Scottish men getting their heads stuck in a bin for 20 minutes, so much so that they acquire the nickname 'Bucket Heid'? I surely do hope not. Keep on doing you, Scotland. Keep on doing you.

@joelgolby

More stuff from VICE re: Scotland, Scottish people:

We Asked a Military Expert How to Conquer an Independent Scotland

Why Is the Far-Right So Weak in Scotland?

[How Labour Lost Scotland to the SNP](How Labour Lost Scotland to the SNP)