Minimum unit pricing will not solve Northern Ireland's drink problem, but it is a step in the right direction

In the 18th century there was an epidemic of alcoholism in England, with cheap gin as one of the contributing factors. In some parts of London more than one in 10 of the buildings was a gin shop and, in 1751, the artist William Hogarth depicted the problem with a painting entitled Gin Lane. It showed a gin shop with the slogan "Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence and clean straw (to lie on) for nothing". Even then price mattered.