[monaghan]

Doesn't solve anything by putting up the cost, you just buy it cheaper from somewhere else. Many years ago when I was a smoker, the budget didn't reduce what I smoked, it just made it more expensive and more tempting to buy duty free. We used to get non-smoking friends to bring back their maximum allowance when they went on holiday.

All that will happen if you up the cost of drink is that pubs will close as people buy in duty free or supermarket discounted.

If they could ban happy hour or discount lager from the supermarket, then maybe cost would come into play, but then again so many kids have far more money than they know what to do with these days, they'd just expect more pocket money to pay for the beer.