www.alkoholpolitik.ch

a Delphi consensus study.
Background: International concern regarding the increase in preventable harms attributed to adolescent alcohol consumption has led to growing political and medical consensus that adolescents should avoid drinking for as long as possible. For this recommendation to be adopted, parents require strategies they can employ to prevent or reduce their adolescent’s alcohol use that are supported by evidence.
Conclusions: A comprehensive set of parenting strategies for preventing or reducing adolescent alcohol consumption were identified. These strategies can be promoted to parents to help them implement national recommendations regarding adolescent alcohol use. (Source: BMC Public Health 2011, 11:13doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-13)

… Should Be Tackled Even Before 13 Years, According To PhD Thesis Defended At University Of The Basque Country
Bad eating habits, ingestion of alcohol, sedentary lifestyles all unhealthy life habits that are already being detected in early adolescence and that are especially predominant amongst women and young people between the ages of 19 and 26. The prevention campaigns should take very much into consideration these groups at risk and even take into account those less than 13 years. These are some of the conclusions that can be drawn from the PhD thesis presented at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) by researcher Marta Arrue, with the title, Lifestyle habits and psychological factors in adolescence and youth in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (CAV-EAE). (Source: Medical News Today, 01/04/11)

The AMA released a brochure containing practical advice to help Australians to be more knowledgeable and responsible about alcohol consumption. (Source: Medical News Today, 01/03/11) ama.com.au, 12/28/10

Want to enjoy a mimosa with Sunday morning brunch at a chic restaurant on Las Olas Boulevard?
Sorry. You have to stick with the orange juice only. That champagne bottle can’t be uncorked.
Unlike many other cities in South Florida from Miami Beach to Wilton Manors, Fort Lauderdale prohibits alcohol from being sold before noon on Sundays. Restaurateurs and bar owners are mounting an effort to change that longstanding ordinance. (Source: Google Alcohol News, 01/01/11) weblogs.sun-sentinel.com, 01/01/11 with our Online-Comments: When this law was decided, the lawmakers had the intention to prevent alcohol problems. The best measure is to rise prices, the second best to limit availability of the product. At the end the restriction on Sunday was left. From a christian point of view there are several reasons to prevent alcohol problems. Today alcohol marketing has troubled our clear view on what is necessary for our society, so every group which has a profit from alcohol sales opposes any restriction. But the people in general would have more social costs to pay and less quality of life. (an other one pending)

In an effort to dampen under-age drinking, Scottish Labour has urged local licensing boards to make tagging of alcohol bottles mandatory in the vulnerable areas where there is a grave problem of antisocial behavior associated with drinking.
A unique code is issued to the off licenses under the scheme using which they have to mark their bottles so that a particular store can be tracked from codes. In case of under-age people taking alcohol or there is illegal use of alcohol by an adult, the officers through the unique code can trace the seller.
There is already followed tagging scheme in Dundee on pilot basis, where it was implemented by Tayside Police. Scottish Government says that tagging alcohol bottles comes within the scope of police. (Source: Google Alcohol News, 12/28/10) topnews.us, 12/28/10

Center for youth education (CEM) and its partner organization for drug abuse prevention – LINK started a two year long project called „Alcohol free lifestyle“. The level of alcohol consumption among minors in Bosnia and Herzegovina is becoming alarming! The research made by the Institute for Public health of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina during 2009 shows that out of 2970 questioned students, from the elementary and high schools, 61% of them consume alcohol. 50% of those drink mostly beer, 30% wine and 20% spirits. 51 % of them claimed that they can easily get alcohol and 12% of them said that they started drinking before they were 12 years old. (Source: Active Newsletter December 2010)

Fueled largely by an increase in distilled spirits advertising on cable television, the growth rate in youths‘ exposure to televised alcohol ads is outpacing that for adults, according to a Dec. 13 news release from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The report by the center indicated that exposure of youths 12 to 20 to alcohol ads on U.S. television increased 71 percent from 2001 to 2009.
The average TV-watching youth saw 366 alcohol ads in 2009.
„One a day is great for vitamins but not for young people being exposed to alcohol advertising,“ said CAMY director David H. Jernigan, Ph.D.
The center said that the latest numbers were an indication of the failure of voluntary marketing standards in the alcohol industry, under which companies place ads in programming with a youth audience no higher than 30 percent. The report found that 13 percent of youths‘ exposure to alcohol ads last year occurred during programming with more than a 30 percent youth audience. (Source: Join Together, 12/20/10)

…By Explaining The Danger Of Alcohol Poisoning
Most of us know a friend, co-worker or relative who passed out at a holiday party. Never assume they are not in danger, especially if it is a teenager, according to the Science Inside Alcohol Project of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Many teens don’t know their capacity for alcohol, specialists say, and that can put them at risk for alcohol poisoning. Nearly one million high school students nationwide binge drink, which means consuming four to five drinks in a two-hour period, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Binge drinking can lead to alcohol poisoning. (Source: Medical News Today, 12/19/10)

Not a happy holiday thought, but an important one: The number of babies who die of SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, surges by 33 percent on New Year’s Day. The suspected reason? Alcohol consumption by caretakers the night before.
Led by sociologist David Phillips of the University of California, San Diego, the study documenting the dramatic rise in SIDS deaths on New Year’s is published in the journal Addiction. The spike, write Phillips and his coauthors, is beyond the normal winter increase in SIDS.
The study examined 129,090 SIDS cases from 1973 to 2006 using three multiyear nationwide datasets: computerized death certificates, the linked birth and infant death dataset, and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. The authors say it is the first, large-scale U.S. study to explore possible connections between alcohol and SIDS. (Source: Medical News Today, 12/17/10)

San Diego – Ist ein Alkoholrausch der Eltern ein übersehener Risikofaktor für den plötzlichen Säuglingstod (SIDS)? Ein US-Soziologe fand in einer Studie in Addiction (2010; 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.03199.x) gleich mehrere Hinweise, darunter war ein dramatischer Anstieg der Todesfälle in der Neujahrsnacht.
David Phillips von der Universität in San Diego hat alle 129.000 SIDS-Fälle aus dem Zeitraum von 1973 bis 2006 kalendarisch mit den Unfallstatistiken abgeglichen, die ein zuverlässiger Indikator für den Alkoholkonsum sind.
Vermehrte Unfälle unter Alkoholeinfluss gibt es in den USA vor allem am Neujahrstag, aber auch am 4. Juli, dem Nationalfeiertag, und dem 20. April. Das ist für US-Jugendliche der “Pot Day”, an dem neben Marihuana auch vermehrt Alkohol getrunken wird. Auch an Wochenenden steigt die Zahl der Unfälle unter Alkoholeinfluss.
An all diesen Tagen kommt es auch zu einem Anstieg der SIDSs. Besonders deutlich ist dies Neujahr, wenn die Zahl der SIDS um 33 Prozent ansteigt. Gegen einen Zufall und für einen Zusammenhang mit dem Alkoholkonsum spricht für Phillips auch, dass das SIDS-Risiko bei alkoholkranken Müttern doppelt so hoch ist wie bei anderen Müttern. Unklar ist für ihn, wie der Alkohol das SIDS-Risiko erhöht. …(Quelle: aerzteblatt.de, 16.12.10)