Meeting description: We informed the Member that SHAAP provides an authoritative medical and clinical voice regarding the need to reduce the impact of alcohol-related harm on the health and wellbeing of people in Scotland as well as the evidence-based approaches to achieve this. We informed the Member of the Public Health Scotland evidence that Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) has reduced alcohol-related harms such as deaths and hospitalisation rates. We highlighted SHAAP's view that unintended negative consequences of the policy have not been realised. We asked the Member for their thoughts on the maintaining and uprating of the policy and conveyed SHAAP's organisational belief that MUP should be uprated to at least 65p to maintain its effect. We also provided an overview of SHAAP's Calling Time campaign which calls for a ban of alcohol sponsorship of sports. We explained that this is based on a body of international evidence demonstrating that exposure to alcohol marketing influences drinking behaviours.
Topic label: Health