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Policy

Alcohol and drugs

From
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care
Directorate
Population Health Directorate
Topic
Health and social care, Law and order
Policy actions  1 of 5

Alcohol

Alcohol policy

We recognise the damaging impact alcohol misuse can have, not just on individuals, but the public services who respond to it. Our alcohol-related harms are high in international terms. That’s why we’ve taken a range of actions to reduce the availability, attractiveness and affordability of alcohol, in line with the World Health Organization’s recommended approach.

We have published Scotland's alcohol and drugs strategic plan 2026 to 2035, building on the National Mission and the world-leading Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol.

Data and surveillance 

The National Records of Scotland published the Alcohol specific deaths 2024  (September 2024).

We are working together with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to improve alcohol treatment data. In March 2024, the Alcohol Consumption and Harms Dashboard was launched, providing a high-level overview of the statistics for consumption and harms from a variety of sources

In December 2024, PHS published the alcohol-related hospital statistics, reporting that in 2023/2024 there were 32,301 alcohol-related hospital admissions (stays) in Scotland.

The Drug and Alcohol Information System (DAISy) is a national database designed to gather key demographic and outcome data on people who use alcohol/drug treatment services. 

Treatment 

An Alcohol Brief Intervention (ABI), is a short, evidence-based, structured conversation about alcohol consumption with a patient/client. It seeks to motivate and support the individual to think about their drinking behaviour in a non-confrontational way, in order to reduce their consumption and/or their risk of harms. 

We are working with Public Health Scotland on reviewing the evidence on the current delivery of ABIs to ensure they are being carried out effectively and are as impactful as they can be in reducing the harms.

We supported the UK Government in reviewing and updating the Clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment (November 2025).  The guidance introduces new approaches to treatment and applies to a broad range of settings including primary care, hospital and justice settings. Development of the guidance was supported by a UK-wide expert group, which included Scottish representatives.  

Recovery 

Managed Alcohol Programmes (MAPs) provide people who experience homelessness and longstanding alcohol dependency with a regular dose of alcohol, typically in a hostel/accommodation-based project.

We are exploring the evidence around MAPs and since 2021 we have contributed to the running and evaluation of the MAP in Glasgow by Simon Community Scotland.,

Harm reduction

We developed our approach to harm prevention in line with the World Health Organization’s three “best buys” to help alleviate alcohol related harms. These are to take steps to reduce the affordability, availability and attractiveness of alcohol products.

We introduced Minimum unit pricing (MUP) for alcohol in 2018, setting the minimum cost of one unit of alcohol to 50 pence.

The Scottish Parliament agreed to continue the MUP legislation beyond 30 April 2024 and to raise the level it is set at to 65 pence per unit.  

We published Scotland's alcohol and drugs strategic plan 2026 to 2035 in March 2026. It builds on the National Mission and the Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol.

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