ETBuckfast ban ‘won’t cut violence’16 Sep 2010
Banning Buckfast will not have any great impact in reducing violent crime, a Strathclyde Police chief warned MSPs.
Chief Superintendent Bob Hamilton said people who drink the high-caffeine tonic wine would just switch to something else.
He said: “They drink any type of drink and the issue for me is that they drink lots of it, whatever type it is and that’s the concern.”
The main issues, he said, were the availability and the cheap price of alcohol.
Mr Hamilton was giving evidence on the link between caffeinated alcoholic drinks, such as Buckfast, and violence to Holyrood’s Health Committee, which is examining Government proposals to impose a 45p minimum price per unit on alcohol.
He said he did not know if a ban would result in a “significant increase or decrease in violent crime”.
Mr Hamilton added: “We don’t attend many violent disturbances outside coffee shops. It’s the alcohol consumption, whatever brand of make, that gives us the greatest concern.”
Mr Hamilton said the problem of alcohol-fuelled violence, when it happened outdoors, was because it was sold in glass bottles that were used as weapons.
Dr Alasdair Forsyth, of the Centre for the Study of Violence at Caledonian University, said a 2007 survey found 43% of young people who drank alcohol before committing an offence said they drank Buckfast.