The Scottish government's about to attempt to push through minimum pricing laws for alcoholic drinks in order to try to break the back of the drinking culture here. Currently, with special offers, and the like, in supermarkets and pubs, it's possible to buy enough alcohol to kill yourself for less than £10 (horrible White Lightning cider crap, and similar drinks, that serve no other purpose than providing as high an alcohol percentage as possible for as cheap as possible).
On the one hand, there's a serious problem in Scotland, and the rest of the UK as a whole, stemming from the drinking culture, where whole areas of city centres are turned into no-go areas after dark. This obviously needs fixing, somehow.
However, on the other hand, the British do not drink because alcohol is cheap. The British, along with other northern Europeans, have always been extremely heavy drinkers. Right now, rates of alcohol consumption aren't even at the same level as they were at the start of the twentieth century (rates dropped heavily around 1915 for obvious reasons, and have been climbing since).
Further, why should other, more responsible drinkers, suffer because others can't handle their drink?
Rather, wouldn't a better solution be to stamp down heavily on drunken behaviour?