Under this bill, the government will cease to levy excise duty on all acoholic beverages below 8.5% abv. This will be paid for by an increase in excise duty on all alcoholic beverages above 8.5% abv. This should encourage safer drinking, as well as encouraging the continued production of traditional ales and ciders.

I urge everyone to vote Nay on this.

Increasing one side does not mean you should decrease the other.

This will only encourage increased consumption of the now cheaper drinks, which will compensate for any strength differences.

I find it very disturbing that CC0 didn't leave this open to debate and moved it straight away.

AE, you're not a drinker so you may not necessarily realise this, but it will reduce consumption. It is far easier to drink 20 units of wine than it is to drink 20 units of ale, for the simple reason that while the former would require you to only drink roughly 1.5 litres of wine, the latter would require you to drink roughly 5 litres of ale, which would be much harder to do. In short, the bill would make it harder to get drunk.

And my reason for instantly moving it is that I proposed the idea several weeks ago and it was met with no opposition.

So why lower one side at all? Increase tax on the higher units and leave it as that.

Because I oppose taxes being raised like that?

Also, that would just increase the overall cost of alcohol and probably lead to people drinking more of the stronger stuff as they become even more concerned with value for money. This proposal at least offers sensible drinkers an olive branch.

Meh, makes sense.

(OOC: Is a drinker... And a fiend...)