Does Booze Cost Every Scot £900 A Year?

Massie defends drink against a Scottish study:

[T]he hundreds of millions of pounds [the study] says are lost through "pain" and "grief" is nowhere balanced by the equally arbitrary figures once could concoct for all the (life-long!) joy and contentment alcohol brings. To say nothing of its positive impact on the birth-rate. (Happy, boozy pregnancies almost certainly outnumber booze-related premature deaths. This must be worth billions in the pro-drink column. These are the workers of the future!) Factor in the social cohesion – to use a favourite piece of government-speak – provided by public houses and the happiness-inducing impact of a dram at home and it seems to me that the ruinous impact of drink has, unsurprisingly, been vastly over-stated.

I prefer Homer's classic wisdom: "Beer: the cause of and solution to all of life's problems."