IN light of the decision by the European Courts over minimum pricing, it is worth going back over the arguments for this much-debated policy.

This isn’t about protectionism, this isn’t about denying the poor a drink. It is about tackling one of Scotland’s biggest problems.

It is almost dismissive to say that Scotland has a drink problem. Scotland had a drink problem. Scotland is now so far beyond a drink problem, that we can only look at those countries with drink problems enviously.

Alcohol abuse costs around £3.6 billion a year. That’s in Scotland. Not the UK or the EU. But in Scotland – £3.6bn. That’s almost £900 for every adult in Scotland.

Every weekend our emergency services have to deal with the effects of this abuse. Our ambulances and hospitals are full of people who have abused and been abused by alcohol.

At least 20,000 people a year are thought to turn up at accident and emergency because of drink.

As Dr Christine Goodall, from Medics Against Violence, has previously pointed out: “Eighty per cent of patients who come in to A&E with facial trauma sustain their injuries as a result of violence. Out of those, over 80 per cent would have been drinking at the time.”

Other than through taxation, it is not the Scotch Whisky Association or Diageo or any of the other drinks companies paying the £3.6bn to clean up this mess.

Ask any medical professional or social worker and they will tell you something radical needs to happen to shake Scotland away from its relationship with booze.

In 2012 the SNP, with the support of the Greens, the LibDems, the Tories and one Labour MSP, backed a bill calling for minimum unit pricing.

It was a radical policy, perhaps, apart from the smoking ban, one of the most radical Holyrood has ever passed. And it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a vote winner.

The policy, where the Government would “set a floor price for a unit of alcohol” means the more alcohol a drink contains, the more expensive that floor becomes.

Independent research by the University of Sheffield claimed alcohol-related deaths would fall by about 60 in the first year and 318 by year 10 of the policy.

There would a fall in hospital admission of 1,600 in year one, and 6,500 per year by year 10 of the policy. That’s a more than a quarter reduction in 10 years. Not enough, but substantial.

Then there are the criminal figures; the minimum unit pricing would, researchers say, lead to a fall in crime volumes by around 3,500 offences per year, freeing up, drastically, the time of police and the courts.

It would, these academics say, take the country from spending £3.2bn a year to saving up £942 million over 10 years.

Minimum Unit Pricing is not perfect, but is a step in the right direction. If the courts decide against the policy, then we hope the Government and the opposition parties at Holyrood manage to come up with a policy equally radical.

Minimum pricing for booze back in Scotland’s court

Andrew Tickell: This legislation is not yet dead but outcome too hard to call