DOCTORS have accused Scotland's drinks lobby of adopting the tactics of Big Tobacco to delay and obstruct health legislation.

In an unusually fierce attack, senior medics said those challenging the SNP's flagship minimum pricing law in the courts were putting profits before people.

Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, or Shaap, an alliance of medical professionals, campaigned for the policy – which would raise the price of a bottle of cheap whisky to £14 north of the Border.

But they are dismayed by a court action by the Scotch Whisky Association and others, who argue minimum pricing, now supported by David Cameron and the Tories in Westminster, breaches EU law.

Shaap's chairman, Peter Rice, said: "The tactics deployed by the drinks industry are not new and borrow heavily from those used by the multinational tobacco industry.

"Over a number of decades, the tobacco industry has sought to block health policies contrary to its profit-making objectives, ignored evidence of adverse health impact and has similarly sought to undermine the Scottish Parliament by mounting legal challenges to smoking legislation.

"The time has come for the parts of the drinks industry which oppose minimum pricing to stop."

Dr Rice did not name the Scotch Whisky Association in his remarks, which comes ahead of an Edinburgh conference on vested commercial interests in the food, tobacco and alcohol industry.

The lobby responded to his criticism, asserting the Scottish legislation was "illegal" and stressing that the industry was not blind to drinking problems.

It said: "We don't believe the illegal, ineffective and unproven method of minimum unit pricing is the way to address the problem."