THE SCOTS are drinking a quarter more alcohol than their English or Welsh counterparts and the gap has grown significantly over the last five years, according to a survey produced by the National Health Service.
If shared among every Scottish adult, the consumption figures would correspond to 46 bottles of vodka, 537 pints of beer, or 130 bottles of wine. However, many in the five million population do not drink at all, so the figure for those who do is actually much higher.
Chronic alcohol abuse means Scotland has one of the worst rates of liver cirrhosis in the world, and costs approximately £3.5 billion (€4 billion) a year in health, crime, lost work days and social problems.
The minority Scottish National Party government is attempting to set a minimum price for drink – at 40p per unit of alcohol. But the attempt has run into opposition.
Encouraged by cheap supermarket prices, most Scots now drink at home, with off-sales now double those in pubs for the first time at 8.2 litres of pure alcohol per adult compared with with 4 litres in pubs.
The Scottish figures have actually remained static since 2005. But consumption in England and Wales, which now stands at 9.7 litres per adult, has fallen by more than half a litre in the same period.
Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said that a million Scots were drinking above safe levels, often in binges, with nearly 250,000 drinking more than twice the limits recommended by doctors.
“Currently there is nothing to stop supermarkets selling alcohol more cheaply than bottled water and that’s why it’s possible to exceed the weekly guidelines for a man for less than £3.50,” she said.
Meanwhile, Benedictine monks, who brew a fortified wine called Buckfast which has a 15 per cent alcohol content and the same amount of caffeine as eight cans of Coke, are facing renewed criticism in Scotland. The wine has been linked to 5,000 crimes alone investigated by Strathclyde Police over the last three years – one-tenth of which were violent, according to BBC Scotland.