www.alkoholpolitik.ch

Lately a ruling in Denmark – the first of its kind – provides that alcohol has no place in advertising targeted minors. The ruling is a victory for the Consumer Ombudsman, as well as for Alcohol and Society (former Danish Alcohol Policy Network) being the fruit of several complaints throughout the years.
Two years ago in 2008 the Danish Consumer Ombudsman clamped down on youth travel agencies with the law addition of 2006 as his legal basis. He thereby introduced a complete ban on alcohol in marketing targeted minors (below 18). December 2011 the law was put to the test and stood its ground. The court has sentenced the youth travel agency, Dansk Ungdomsferie Aps a 55.000 fine (7.000 Euros) for targeting minors and encouraging alcohol consumption. …
(Source: Eurocare Newsletter, 01/25/12)

Boston mass transit will ban alcohol ads starting July 1. The ban will include subway cars, trains and buses, Boston.com reports.

Joe Pesaturo, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), said the transit line’s advertising contractor has said it expects ad revenue to drop by about $1.5 million in the first full year of the alcohol ad ban.

New York City and Chicago are the only other cities with major public transit systems that allow alcohol ads, according to Michael Scippa, spokesman for the watchdog organization Alcohol Justice. …
(Source: Join Together, 01/25/12)

New Article Documents Alcohol Industry’s Vested Interests in State Regulation
In a peer-reviewed article in the February 2012 issue of Addiction, Sarah Mart, director of research at Alcohol Justice, has documented the alcohol industry’s excessive involvement in the annual National Conference of State Liquor Administrators (NCSLA) that took place in June 2010. More than two-thirds (72%) of the 187 meeting attendees, and 65% of the panelists, were from the alcohol industry. The rest represented state alcohol control systems and federal government agencies. Mart was the only participant representing public health policy. “Big Alcohol panelists sent regulators a warning message: Be industry-friendly. Don’t rock the boat of commerce with public health concerns, or your job may be on the line,” reported Mart. “The Federal officials that were present also spoke about supporting the industry, instead of protecting public safety.” Click here for the press release, and email info@alcoholjustice.org to request the full article.
(Source: Newsletter Alcohol Justice, 01/25/12)

The International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP; www.icap.org) is pleased to announce the release of Guiding Principles for Responsible Beverage Alcohol Marketing associated with the Self-Regulation initiative of Global Actions on Harmful Drinking (www.global-actions.org).

“For the first time, we now have common global standards for alcohol marketing. This represents a major step in the long-standing commitment by the leading alcohol producers to effective self-regulation,” said World Federation of Advertisers Managing Director Stephan Loerke. “WFA looks forward to working with them to implement these standards at a local level.” …
(Source: Alcohol Reports, 01/14/12)
Comment: ICAP is the main institution of the global alcohol industry. This will be a new attempt to make alcohol advertising socially acceptable. The wolf needs new sheep’s clothing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say 38 million American adults are binge drinkers, and most of them are ages 18 to 34. In a new report, the CDC says that while binge drinking is more common among young adults, those age 65 and older who binge drink do so more often—an average of five to six times a month. …

Binge drinking is responsible for more than half of the 80,000 alcohol-related deaths each year in the United States, and accounts for about three-fourths of the more than $200 billion in costs from alcohol abuse, according to the CDC.

“Binge drinking causes a wide range of health, social and economic problems and this report confirms the problem is really widespread,” CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. said in a news release. “We need to work together to implement proven measures to reduce binge drinking at national, state and community levels.”

The CDC found binge drinking is more common among people with household incomes of $75,000 or more. However, binge drinkers with household incomes of less than $25,000 have the largest number of drinks per sitting—an average of eight to nine drinks.
(Source: Join Together, 01/11/12)
Comment: In one of the online comments is pointed out that this result shows that not only the alcoholics are the problem who cause the alcohol related harm to society. That is what the alcohol industry wants to make us believe.
From Full report (pdf):
Implications for Public Health Practice: More widespread implementation of Community Guide–recommended interventions (e.g., measures controlling access to alcohol and increasing prices) could reduce the frequency, intensity, and ultimately the prevalence of binge drinking, as well as the health and social costs related to it.

An article in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization raises concerns regarding conflict of interest in a partnership where SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer by sales volume, receive funding from the Global Fund for a HIV/AIDS prevention project in drinking establishements in South Africa.
“No conflict of interest” replies the Global Fund.
The recent issue of Bulletin of the World Health Organization carries a round table section: “Global Fund collusion with liquor giant is a clear conflict of interest. The First article is by Richard Matzopoulos, Charles DH Parry, Joanne Corrigall, Jonny Myers, Sue Goldstein and Leslie London. They describe how the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) has recently included SABMiller as a recipient of funding for an education intervention aimed at minimizing alcohol-related harm, including HIV prevention, among men in drinking establishments.The authors think Global Fund support for this initiative is cause for concern.

The article discusses whether men in drinking establishments are the best target group for the intervention, whether a drinking establishment is the best location, and whether the educational intervention itself is effective. Their experience is that the liquor industry is inclined to support alcohol interventions that will not affect drinking rates at a population level. These interventions allow the industry to simultaneously fulfil social and legal obligations to address the harmful use of alcohol while ensuring that sales and profits are maintained.

Providing funding for a highly profitable industry that could afford to fund its own interventions also reduces the funds available for less well-resourced organizations.

Ask the authors: “Do we take it that the problem of “corporate capture” has now spread to one of the largest health funders in the world?” …
(Source: Alcohol Reports, 01/08/12) add-recources.org, 01/05/12
Comment: At least the industry accepted the role of alcohol regarding HIV.

The Appellate Body, on 21 December 2011, issued its reports in the case “Philippines — Taxes on Distilled Spirits” (WT/DS396/AB/R and WT/DS403/AB/R).
> Appellate Body Report: http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news11_e/396_403abr_e.htm

Warning labels aimed at pregnant women will be added to all alcohol products in New Zealand and Australia.

The Australian and New Zealand Ministerial Council on Food Regulation agreed to introduce labelling telling of the risks of drinking alcohol during pregnancy at a Melbourne meeting last week in response to the recommendations of the independent Food Policy and Labelling Review.
The labelling will be regulated in two year’s time. …
(Source: Alcohol Reports, News, 12/20/11) nzherald.co.nz, 12/16/11

The economics think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have published a new report on Alcohol pricing and taxation policies. It echoes many of the findings from a report last year in which it suggested minimum pricing would transfer further profits to industry and retailers, therefore favouring increased taxation.

The new report however suggests the current alcohol taxation system is not optimal and a “sensible starting point would be to tax all alcohols at an equivalent rate per unit. Such a change would require policy action at the EU level which the Government should pursue.” …

“…prefer higher and restructured alcohol taxes as an alternative to minimum pricing. At least with taxation the revenues flow to the Government rather than to the industry. Taxes that were more closely focused on the alcohol content of different products could also allow something closer to a minimum price to be introduced through the tax system, perhaps in tandem with a ban on below-tax sales.”

However Dr Petra Meier, who conducted the University of Sheffield modelling on pricing impacts has previously said both taxes and minimum pricing should be used to reduce alcohol-related harm as it should not be an ‘either or’ argument. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 12/08/11) Alcohol Policy UK, 12/06/11

81 per cent of African women report themselves to be non-drinkers, says data from the World Health Surveys. This is an important fact to take into account in planning of alcohol prevention strategies and policies.

In the latest round of the WHO World Health Surveys 40.739 women from 20 African countries were interviewed also about their alcohol drinking habits. Close to 34.000 reported lifetime abstinence from alcohol. This is 81 % of the respondents in the survey. The proportion of current alcohol drinkers ranged from 1% in Malawi to 20% in Burkina Faso.

Four researchers – Priscilla Martinez, Jo Røislien, Nirmala Naidoo and Thomas Clausen – have analyzed the data from the WHO survey and presented their results in an article published in BioMed Central. They point to the fact that “Alcohol use is an important factor in any woman’s health risk profile. Harmful patterns of alcohol consumption are strongly associated with increased morbidity and mortality”.

Read the full article here.

The conclusions of the article are: “A variety of drinking patterns are present among African women with lifetime abstention the most common. Countries with hazardous consumption patterns require serious attention to mitigate alcohol-related harm. Some similarities in factors related to alcohol use can be identified between different African countries, although these are limited and highlight the contextual diversity of female drinking in Africa”.

The researchers comment their findings by writing that the current situation with low prevalence of alcohol use among women represents an opportunity to establish and promote healthy drinking habits among the vast majority of African women. This would serve the public health of African countries far into the future.

At the same time the researchers sound a warning bell related to female drinking: “This effort would be particularly relevant and timely given the current expansion of the alcohol industry in Africa. Women are a large portion of the population available for recruitment into regular drinking and will also benefit from improved economic situations, creating a ‘perfect storm’ for an increase in alcohol use and related harm. Such circumstances and increases in hazardous drinking among women have already been observed in Brazil and India”.
(Source: Dag Endal on add-resources.org, 12/05/11)