ALCOHOL and tobacco use are the silent killers that have knocked on the doors of generations of families across Scotland for decades; normalised as pastimes and seen by many as a necessary component for socialising or celebrating with friends. They continue to cruelly claim lives daily through addiction, diseases or premature deaths.

The ripple-effect that such use causes for families, friends and communities results in strains on health and recovery services with not enough provisions to give support to everyone who needs it.

We all know the detrimental physical effects both alcohol and tobacco products cause. We know about the risks to our bodies from consuming them; the faster degeneration of our organs, the links to cancers and other life-limiting diseases, but we often forget the mental load that their use brings to users and their families.

The pain of watching loved ones deteriorate, feeling like there is no way to save them as they walk a path of destruction – not to mention the tragic cases of those who have lost their lives on our roads through reckless drink-driving.

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Families whose lives are changed forever because of a split moment of irrational decision-making. Drivers who, if they are lucky to survive, lose their jobs, homes and freedom because their confidence was chemically inflated.

The crisis continues in Scotland because cigarettes and alcohol are so commonplace and accessible while support to reduce harm is not.

When the Scottish Greens were in Government, we secured a commitment to explore the introduction of a levy on retailers profiting from alcohol and tobacco products as part of our efforts to fund the vital recovery services that are so desperately needed.

It’s a change that can’t come soon enough. For the many families who have lost loved ones from alcohol-related deaths, there is a huge weight of their grief, knowing it could have been avoidable if there were better funded and more readily available recovery services in their local areas.

Scotland has taken important steps in changing our attitudes towards health-harming products over recent years, to create a more positive society that doesn’t put cigarettes and alcohol at the heart of its personality.

By restricting discounts, restricting advertising and marketing, and introducing Minimum Unit Pricing we’ve seen a shift, but they do little to contribute towards funding services for those struggling with addiction.

The introduction of minimum pricing has boosted the profits of large retailers like supermarkets who are licensed to sell alcohol and tobacco products, but it almost seems perverse that they’re profitting from this.

By putting a public health levy in place, we can create a golden opportunity for retailers to help tackle the alcohol-harm crisis and fund more services to support people and their families that have been torn apart by misuse and addiction instead of just playing a role with their sales of said items.

I remember a time when health board adverts on television showed aliens chewing blue sticks proclaiming how “boggin” they tasted, and teenagers who had embarrassed themselves from drinking too much at house parties.

These became quotable statements sunk into our subconscious and no doubt parroted throughout schools and colleges, to highlight the social and behavioural impacts of drinking and smoking. While we know that shame doesn’t help people to avoid addictive or harmful substances, knowledge and inspirational campaigns have a part to play.

The importance of public health and wellbeing has been illuminated recently by inspirational campaigners like Sir Chris Hoy, whose cancer diagnosis has brought to light the need to lower the screening age for prostate cancer and has encouraged more men to get their health checked.

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He is just one individual, but in sharing his personal experience, he has sparked change for the better. Similarly, recovery services are spaces where personal stories can be shared to bring about positive change, where people feel less isolated and more supported in their experiences with addiction or disease and want to make the most of their lives.

Scotland has the opportunity to make a small change that can also make a big difference to the lives of people and their families by introducing this public health levy.

The onus must be placed on the supermarkets and large retailers that profit from tobacco and alcohol harm. They make up an 86% majority of the retailers that would receive this levy, raised from the Minimum Unit Pricing already in place.

It is a cost that large licensed retailers across our country can afford to invest in our health and recovery services – a cost that these services cannot afford to survive without.