Conservatives want to abolish alcohol units system

So what happens when you say to your mate down the pub

"Woah Dave, easy on that drink, there's 4cl of alcohol in that"

?

Do you think that will mean more to him than:

"Woah Dave, easy on that drink, that's 4 units"

?

Any reference comes entirely from personal experience. Changing it only means most people will be forced to try and relearn how to assess their drinks.
Yes, it will mean more.
 
Yes, it will mean more.
In what way?

Explain what this will tell your average person that is useful and understandable to them.

Slightly similar idea - cyanide. This is found in various natural foods, including apple seeds. If I were to say to you 'that apple seed has 0.1mg of cyanide in it', whilst you would know how much there was, that has told absolutely nothing of how it will affect you. If it takes 500mg of cyanide to kill someone you'll be fine but if 0.001mg was enough to kill an elephant you'd be screwed.

Point is, a cl measurement tells you nothing useful until you can place it in a frame of reference. In terms of drinks what people want to know is how drunk it will make them and their reference is their own experience of different drinks. Society has decades of experience to know how a unit of alcohol effects them, regardless of if they understand what it is. Change that to cl and everyone will just have to learn all over again (or realise the number is the same anyway).
 
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True.. but why not just use a more easily recognisable measurement, such as centiliters/millimeters?

So there's 20ml of alcohol in your pint...:p

Yeah we should confuse imperial and metric measurements!:p

Got to sa I don't really know anyone that doesn't know what a unit is (ie how it will affect them not how it is measured) and most of the time people don't actually care when drinking, if they do they look at the bottle and go ah ok, 1.7 units in this beer or 14.5 units in this bottle of Vodka.

Having said that most of my friends are also of the variety that they won't touch a drop (even a sip) if they are driving so...
 
Units is easier.
2.5-3 units ish to a pint
1 unit per single shot ish
smal wine 2 units
big wine 3 units
gay drink (alcopop) 1.5 units

Everyone knows that?

If I'm being carefull I limit myself to 30 units, it's just easy.
 
If you never know how many units, how is the same number with a different unit going to be 'simpler'? :confused:

because 1 unit could mean anything if you don't now what it is.
ml on the other hand is a universally known unit and as such people now what it is.
 
because 1 unit could mean anything if you don't now what it is.
ml on the other hand is a universally known unit and as such people now what it is.

Could you stop talking about ml because the new measurement will be given in cl, not ml?

1 Unit doesn't have to mean anything to do it's job. Knowing how many ml or cl of alcohol is in something, doesn't tell you any more about how drunk it will get you than units do, but units have the benefit of decades of use and prior experience.

I bet more people would understand how drunk 6 units of alcohol will make them, compared to if you asked them how drunk 6cl of alcohol will make them.
 
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few people know what a unit is. And most people quote units for when ale was lower %

Whats difficult about it though, you just say 3 units to a pint. It's an estimate used to work out how drunk a combination of drinks will get you.
Anything outside that people will be able to work out the exact amounts from units.

Knowing the exact amount of actual alcohol is just stupid.
It's mathmatically more complicated and who can be bothered to do maths when alcohol is involved?
 
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1 Unit doesn't have to mean anything to do it's job. Knowing how many ml or cl of alcohol is in something, doesn't tell you any more about how drunk it will get you than units do, but units have the benefit of decades of use and prior experience.

It does tell you how much alcohol is in a drink though. Which is very important information. If the majority knew what a unit was then there would be no need. but few do.
 
Whats difficult about it though, you just say 3 units to a pint. It's an estimate.

Knowing the exact amount is stupid.

So i'm on my 8th pint at 2.1 cl, 2 shots at 1.03, one wkd at 1.2cl so now i'm on...

Or you can say I had around 20 units.:p

I can't see why thts would help, it will only ever be estimates anyway and each beer/spirit will have a different cl rating causing the same issues we now "have" with units. Pointless IMO...
 
It does tell you how much alcohol is in a drink though. Which is very important information. If the majority knew what a unit was then there would be no need. but few do.

And people in this thread have repeatedly show few know what a centilitre is.
 
It does tell you how much alcohol is in a drink though. Which is very important information. If the majority knew what a unit was then there would be no need. but few do.

Important to who? I don't see who would really benefit from knowing that their drink contain 1.8cl of alcohol. What does that tell them other than an interesting little snippet of trivia?

All most people care about is assessing how drunk a particular drink is likely to make them, knowing the exact quantity of alcohol in a drink doesn't help them do this unless they know how much of an exact quantity of alcohol will make the drunk. I'd suggest most people wouldn't have even the slightest clue if 2cl was virtually nothing, enough to get you merry, or bordering on dangerous if you were to do a random survey of people.
 
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Those who don't know what a unit is works out how much they can drink in beer currency.
Pints, shots, wines, and gay drinks. It's like before we had decimalisation in money, but it's an unspoken system learnt through experience.
 
Important to who? I don't see who would really benefit from knowing that their drink contain 1.8cl of alcohol. What does that tell them other than an interesting little snippet of trivia?

it provides a volume and as such is much easier for people to understand what they are drinking.

ohh that drink has 1 unit in it. Is that a lot or not.

That beer is 5% and Xcl is clear and easy, with no training needed.
 
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