![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/2a-Tim-Stockwell.jpg\")
<\/a>UVic psychology professor and director of the Center of Addictions Research British Columbia (CARBC) Tim Stockwell led the research, in association with the University of Toronto and the University of Sheffield in the UK. The studies concluded that increasing the average minimum cost of a standard drink from approximately $1.25 to $1.50 would improve public safety and raise government revenues. ($1.25 is the approximate cost the public and drinking establishments pay at retail outlets.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kind of price rises we\u2019re talking about [minimum prices] would actually have benefits,\u201d says Stockwell. \u201cThere\u2019s a simple reason for this: because the price increase is larger than the reduction in consumption, people make more money. The government makes more revenue, the retailers make more money, and everybody wins, except people don\u2019t get quite as drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Student opinions are mixed on this issue. While some support the idea of improving public safety and avoiding provocative mischief, they aren\u2019t very keen on raising alcohol prices. According to physics student Alexander Jensen, a rise in alcohol prices could force him to avoid the bar scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, personally, it\u2019ll make me want to go out less because I don\u2019t have a lot of money and it\u2019s already expensive for me to out and have a drink,\u201d says Jensen.<\/p>\n
Nursing student Ashley Thompson shares Jensen\u2019s opinion on raising alcohol prices and says raising prices will only take more money away from students and young people.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost students don\u2019t have much money and most of them spend most of their time studying full-time and working part-time,\u201d says Thompson, \u201craising prices on the one thing they do in their limited free time isn\u2019t a good idea, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
But not all students share the same beliefs; some support the idea of raising alcohol prices, and among them is environmental science student Jacky Smith. \u201cIf actual research concluded that raising prices will improve things, then I don\u2019t think it\u2019s such a bad idea,\u201d says Smith.<\/p>\n
Ben Scotley, assistant manager of Felicita\u2019s pub at UVic, isn\u2019t concerned with a small price hike. According to Scotley, as long as his business maintains its low prices and stays focused on its student demographic, Felicita\u2019s won\u2019t be significantly affected. \u201cWe\u2019re not that worried about such a small price rise,\u201d says Scotley. \u201cWe pretty much have the lowest prices in the city and we\u2019re literally on the UVic campus, so I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll be severely affected by it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his support for higher alcohol prices, Stockwell believes that more must be done to inform consumers about the health hazards of alcohol.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to have restrictions on marketing and advertising and we need to have better labelling,\u201d he says. \u201cWhy is it that a product like alcohol doesn\u2019t inform consumers that it might give them cancer?\u201d<\/p>\n
Stockwell explains that the more someone drinks in his\/her lifetime, the higher probability that person is to develop cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody who drinks one drink per day has a higher risk of getting cancer, breast, throat, prostate, mouth, stomach, colon, and it\u2019s directly related to the amount of alcohol you consume,\u201d he warns.<\/p>\n
Alcohol is also popular due to its perceived social benefits and cool image; according to Stockwell, the public is still largely unaware of the hazards of alcohol.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of us drink and most of us love it,\u201d he says, \u201cright now, with alcohol, I think we\u2019re where we were with tobacco 50 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New research claims that raising the price of alcohol will have positive social and economical effects on British Columbia. Last month, a study from the University of Victoria indicated that increasing the price of intoxicants would reduce the number of alcohol-related deaths, hospital admissions, and crimes. UVic psychology professor and director of the Center of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-april-3-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6777"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6780,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777\/revisions\/6780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}