www.alkoholpolitik.ch

The popular, formerly caffeinated, fruity alcoholic beverage, Four Loko, has been blamed for the spike in alcohol-related hospitalizations, especially throughout college campuses.
Initially, caffeine was deemed the culprit and the Food and Drug Administration ordered all traces of caffeine to be removed from Four Loko and all other similar beverages. However, according to an upcoming evaluation in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, caffeine might not be the primary cause of the spike in hospitalizations. … (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/23/11) psychologicalscience.org, 5/23/11

LICE RAP is a new dynamic trans-disciplinary EU project which aims is to help policy makers „re-think and re-shape“ current and future approaches to the huge human and economic costs of addictions and lifestyles in Europe. This project is supported by the Catalan Ministry of Health and coordinated from the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona by Dr. Antoni Gual, head of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona Addictions Unit. This Unit holds a broad range of expertise in the management of addictions and undertakes a number of research projects devoted to strengthening scientific and social knowledge on this topic, such as the European projects AMPHORA and ODHIN. This time, the initiative goes far beyond alcohol, and will investigate addiction in its broadest sense, including all types of substance problems and even internet gaming and gambling.

Over the next five years the ‚Addictions and Lifestyles in Contemporary Europe Reframing Addictions Project‘ (ALICE RAP) will weave the work of over 100 scientists from 67 institutions in 25 countries into a integrated evidence base for informed policy action. The research programme includes a wide range of different quantitative and qualitative scientific disciplines stretching across the humanities and social sciences and the biological and medical sciences. … (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/23/11) eurekalert.org, 5/23/11

Background:  Alcohol abuse has detrimental effects on cerebral function, metabolism, and volume. Some of these effects were found to be at least partially reversible with continued abstinence. Furthermore, it has been reported that there are different effects of alcohol on brain volumes for women compared with men, but the results concerning the interaction between alcohol dependence and gender are inconsistent. …
Results:  Global cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume was increased and WM and GM volume decreased equally in male and female patients. A gender by diagnosis interaction was found neither for global nor for regional volumes or VBM data. VBM whole brain analysis yielded a significant GM volume loss in the patient group in the cingulate gyrus and the insula in both hemispheres. Region of interest analysis for the initial and 3 months follow-up scans yielded significant gains in regional volumes, particularly the cingulate gyrus and the insula in the group of abstinent patients, whereas no volume change at all is found in the patients who had relapsed.
Conclusions:  Our study confirms widespread cerebral volume loss in recently detoxified alcoholics. The effects of alcohol dependence seem to have equally adverse effects on brain morphometry in males and females. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/23/11) onlinelibrary.wiley.com, 5/20/11

Many governments realize the need for effective legislation to reduce the harm from alcohol use. This is also recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. But how to do it? WHO Western Pacific Regional Office has offered a guide.
The purpose of the legislation guide is to assist government agencies and ministries in developing country-level legislation to implement, monitor and enforce effective alcohol policies.
The guide provides advice on approaches to alcohol regulation to support development of effective legislation appropriate to each country. It provides practical advice based on international experience about the implications of legislative options, steps to be taken to implement legislation and best practice on how to enforce legislation and support compliance. …
Order or download the guide from the WHO WPRO web site: Addressing the harmful use of alcohol – a guide to developing effective alcohol regulation (Source: add-resources.org, 5/19/11)

Every so often at Marin Institute, we get a complaint from someone about an alcohol advertisement they’ve seen in their community they think shouldn’t be there. Most of the time, they’re right. In our role as industry watchdog, I’ve taken on the responsibility to report such complaints to the industry directly to get the ads removed as soon as possible.
However, we have made a deliberate decision to not use the industry’s official complaint process, because as we demonstrated with our report in 2008, it’s a failure and a charade. … (Source: Marin Institute, 5/17/11)

– a systematic review of the literature
Abstract
Objective: The most recent scientific literature indicates that alcohol advertising influences behavior, particularly early and higher alcohol consumption by children and adolescents. From a public health perspective, alcohol advertising should be restricted. In many countries, as well as in Brazil, limits to alcohol advertising are established by industry self-regulation (e.g. controlled by the advertising community itself). We examined in this review all papers on the subject of industry self-regulation of alcohol advertising published in the international literature. … Discussion: The set of papers obtained indicates that industry self-regulation of alcohol advertising does not show evidence of efficacy. In other
words, such a regulation does not prevent, for instance, alcohol advertising directed at children and adolescents. Conclusion: Further measures should be considered for the control and the broadcast of alcohol advertising, such as independent monitoring, legal control. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/18/11) scielo.br

Police say their latest national blitz on drunken behaviour confirms that Australia’s culture of alcohol and violence is out of control.
Over the weekend 1509 people were arrested in the ACT, Victoria, NSW, Tasmania, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia, as part of Operation Unite, a 48-hour police crackdown on excessive alcohol consumption across Australia and New Zealand. …
The Police Association of NSW was less impressed with the 563 arrests made in its state, calling for new strategies to tackle alcohol-fuelled violence.
Acting president Pat Gooley said, “Operation Unite has proved that our culture of alcohol and violence is out of control, with boozed-up idiots running wild all over the country. “We need a comprehensive strategy for tackling alcohol-fuelled violence one that addresses the causes of the problem, not just the symptoms.“ (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/17/11) canberratimes.com.au, 5/16/11

A NEW minimum price for alcohol is likely to become law within a year, after the SNP vowed the measure would be the key priority of its second term in office. The newly re-elected Nationalist administration has confirmed the 45-pence-per-unit minimum-price measure will be in its first legislative programme after it was blocked in the last parliament by opposition parties. Sources suggested the legislation would most likely come into force on 1 April next year. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/17/11) news.scotsman.com, 5/10/11 The Swiss Government pretends that minimum prices are against EU-law. (?)

New Swiss road safety review shows men 18-24 at risk for serious accidents caused by speed, alcohol.
French road safety officials meeting in Paris 11 May agreed to a series of radical changes to crack down on speeders and drunk drivers, shortly after April figures were released that show a sharp increase in road fatalities. Poland had the highest number of road deaths of any European country in 2009, Eurostat figures show, with more than 4,500 people killed, but France was second, with 4,273, followed by Italy with just over 4,000.
France has a population eight times greater than Switzerland, but the number of road deaths in 2009 was about 12 times greater, with 349 people dying in Swiss road accidents that year. Stiffer penalties, more prevention has worked in Switzerland, experts say. … (Source: Alcohol Reports, 5/17/11) genevalunch.com, 5/11/11

Binge drinking appears to hamper young adults’ ability to perform simple language and memory tests, a new study shows. The research suggests that drinking large quantities of alcohol in a short period may have an effect on the region of the brain involved in learning.
CNN reports that the study involved 122 college students between the ages of 18 and 20, about half of whom said they were binge drinkers. The other half drank alcohol moderately. All of the students performed learning and memory tests. First, they read lists of words and tried to remember as many as they could. Then they heard two stories and tried to retell them as accurately as they could. … (Source: Join Together, 5/17/11)