[Stuart]

While I don't know the official figures, it seems to me that we are (as a society) suffering an increase in Alcohol-related crime and injury. It also seems to me that these increases started occurring around the same time the Supermarkets started actively competing selling alcohol, so I do think these increases are linked to Supermarket low prices and multi-buy deals.

I've seen bottles of wine in Sainsburys that don't cost much more than a bottle of water. That can't be a good thing.

I know that when talking about drinking, the media tends to show rampaging mobs of drunken youth staggering up the road, apparently having fallen out of some late night pub or club, but I'll bet a lot of them have had a fair amount of cheap supermarket booze to drink before they left for the club or pub.

I don't think Multibuy offers for Alcohol are a good thing whether offered by a supermarket or a pub/club/bar. Nor is buying Alcohol in bulk. Say what you like about pub prices, but they do make it more expensive to get drunk.

It does concern me that I can buy 15 cans of lager for just over a tenner. This is well under 1 pound a pint. There's also the problem that my local Sainsbury's would also sell me a 3 or more boxes, each with 15 cans. I am fairly certain I would not be too healthy if I sat down and drunk 33 pints of lager in one sitting. A good barman or barmaid would have cut me off long before then. There's also the fact I would have trouble affording the 33 pints of lager at the pub in the first place.

So, on first reading, I would say this minimum price per unit is actually a good thing.