Cheap, super-strength lager and cider killing homeless drinkers

Peter Mansfield-Clark, who runs the Three Bridges homeless hostel Crawley Open House, has spoken out against super-strength lagers and ciders and their effect upon sections of the town's homeless community. He told Crawley News

These drinks are gut-rot. They are lethal. The worst thing is that they are so incredibly cheap.

He is calling for shops to act more responsibly and stop selling super-strength drinks to the homeless.  According to Mr Mansfield-Clark, around one in three of his homeless clients have problems related to alcohol, and he wants to see prices raised sharply so homeless people cannot buy so much alcohol with so little money.  

Crawley News investigated prices of super-strength lagers and ciders at a selection of town shops and found the cheapest deals were:

• a four pack of 440ml Tennent's Super cans for £5.00 (9% abv, ie 32p per unit)
• White Ace cider in 500ml cans for just 69p each (7.5% abv, 18p per unit)

See also homeless charity ThamesRreach's One can is all it takes 2005 briefing paper on cheap super-strength drinks, and this real-cider fan's view of white cider. 

Interesting to contrast this with the furore over JD Wetherspoon's 99p pint (which is 50p per unit) promotion.

Comments

[Peter O'Loughlin]

Whilst the author's views in respect of the damage caused by alcohol are, insofar as they go, accurate, this writer has yet to meet an alcoholic who could cut down on his/her intake regardless of the price.

Long before cut price alcohol was avaialable, alcoholics, especially the homeless, would buy either white spirits or methylated spirits and mix it with orange juice, a process referred to as 'boxing'

Alcoholism is a complex mental and physical disorder with a strong spiritual dimension, wherein the addicted have lost their ability to control their intake for any sustainable period of time. Attempting to get them to cut down by any process is unlikely to have a lasting effect.

As Carl Jung pointed out to Bill 'W', the co founder of Alcoholics Anonymous;

"Science has now answer to this problem, psychotherapy alone is useless. What is required is a spiritual experience"

We need to learn to treat the addict, not the addition.