Double drink prices, urges doctors -

The Telegraph - UK ^ | March 5, 2004 | Celia Hall

[CSM]

Government supportive nanny staters have no right to call themselves a "realpatriot". Please change your monikor to more accurately reflect your views.

[NavyCaptain]

Let's see! In 1970 to my recollection a bottle of beer here in Ohio cast about$.50 and a mixed drink maybe $1.00. They cost more today, but our consumption has gone up! So raise the price further and our consumtion will go --- up?

[realpatriot71]

Government supportive nanny staters have no right to call themselves a "realpatriot". Please change your monikor to more accurately reflect your views.

You don't have a right to cheap booze. If you don't want to pay their tax, make your own.

BTW - kiss my ass

[metesky]

I love the comparison to 1970 prices!

In 1970 in almost any neighborhood bar in Brockton, you could get a 16 oz. Narragansit (Nasty Narrie) and a shot of bar whiskey for $.60!

Workingman's luncheon special.

[kallisti]

indeed.

[Cobra Scott]

Yes, we need more control!

People don't go to the doctor enough, and I have the perfect solution; cut all doctor's salaries in half!

[freeeee]

"If you don't want to pay the tax, make your own tea."

[Bella_Bru]

make your own.

Don't we have laws prohibiting that?

[tjwmason]

We have a big problem in their reasoning.

However, the academy argues that drinking levels should return to those of the early 1970s when the population drank on average seven litres of alcohol per head a year. This compares with the 11.1 litres now consumed.

The doctors said that drinking at levels of one or two drinks a day provided proven health benefits but that higher amounts began to do harm.

Taking the latter point, the official recommendation is 3 drinks per day (for a man). If one assumes that these are standard glasses of wine, each being 125 m.l., that makes 375 m.l./day of wine. That makes 136.875 litres of wine per annum. Taking 12.5% a.b.v. gives 13.86875 litres of pure alcohol; i.e., this excessive drinking (11 litres) is below the government suggestion (14 litres).

[metesky]

A real patriot like the great brewer Samual Adams would be ashamed to be seen in your company.

[swarthyguy]

Not to mention what Thomas Paine might have written about today's America.

[metesky]

Good catch, tj.
;O)

[CSM]

"You don't have a right to cheap booze."

I thought that personal liberty and freedom meant that I do have the right to cheap booze. I am also under the impression that government should be limited in its power and that the evergrowing theft of cash out of our pockets was evil.

I see that I am mistaken and that real patriots should be supportive of the government's right to take as many dollars of mine in taxes as they desire.

[swarthyguy]

NO, no, those numbers are calculated using the effects of SHS on a human body with the same amount of alcohol.

Massages aren't just for backs. They work even better on stats.

[oyez]

The hard core consumers will pay the price while their dependents will have to do with less. Some doctors think they are so smart.

[cynicom]

Would this affect Ted Kennedy???

[Mears]

Aaaah,Brockton---the old nemesis of Newton North.

[Shryke]

I don't have to buy, and I don't pay the tax. It's a choice.

I agree it is a choice. My disagreement comes with your apparent willingness to ok a tax on what you would call a "vice". Taxes such as that, always well intentioned (like the road to hell), are in my experience, miserable failures. In the end, small businesses such as bars and restaurants will get crushed, black or gray margets will emerge, and the "health benefits" that everyone should enjoy due to higher taxation turn out to be a myth. It's my hope that most voters, and their representatives, are reluctant to promote more taxation for something as ridiculous as limiting someone's personal legal freedoms.

[swarthyguy]

>>>It's my hope that most voters, and their representatives, are reluctant to promote more taxation for something as ridiculous as limiting someone's personal legal freedoms.

FAT CHANCE. Mention health or kids, and people will turn in their mother.

[metesky]

I knew it was time to leave Cape Cod when Barnstable High beat Brockton for the Div. I football title.

When we moved to the Cape it was a nice place; low population, three month summer party, return to normalcy.

Now you might as well live in Brockton or Malden or Meffa.