www.alkoholpolitik.ch

One of the big concerns about national healthcare reform in USA is the prospect of government rationing of care, but a pair of recent stories shows that such decisions are already made in the U.S. as well as in Europe when it comes to caring for alcohol-related illnesses. (Source: Join Together, 8/14/09)

Mentor’s annual report, including a consolidated financial summary for the year ending 31st December 2008 is available to download here. This year’s Annual Report is an 8-page document including updated directory information for the Mentor Family of National and Regional organisations. It is designed, like previous year’s reports to compliment our information cards. Source: Mentor Foundation, 7/31/09

Family Drug Support’s Stepping Stones to Success program has won the 2009 National Drug and Alcohol Award for Excellence in Prevention and Community Education. The team was recognised during an awards ceremony at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, tonight when it was acknowledged for its contribution in raising community awareness around alcohol and drug problems. (Source: Medical News Today, 7/8/09)

Army Brass Calls for Crackdown on Alcohol and Other Drug Problems. The U.S. Army is directing commanders to take steps to root out alcohol and other drug problems and get soldiers with addiction problems either into treatment or out of the service, the Army Times reported June 8. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli is leading the campaign to crack down on alcohol and other drug related offenses, pressing local commanders to step up reporting of offenses and take sterner action on soldiers who test positive for drugs. Soldiers who get treatment but then relapse are more likely to be booted from the service, Army leaders said. (Source: Join Together, 6/15/09)

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„The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to impose federal regulation on cigarettes and other forms of tobacco, passing a landmark bill to empower the Food and Drug Administration to control products that eventually kill half their regular users. The legislation, with only minor differences from a version the House passed in April by a nearly 3-to-1 ratio. A White House spokesman, Reid H. Cherlin, said on Thursday that President Obama, who was a co-sponsor of the bill when he was in the Senate, would sign the legislation when it reached his desk. (Source: Harvard World Health News, 6/11/09) The New York Times, 6/11/09 Comment: What about alcohol regulation?

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Health and life insurance firms in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom hold at least $4.4 billion in investments in companies that manufacture tobacco products, according to an article in the June 4, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Physorg.com reported June 3 that researchers from the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard School of Medicine found that insurance companies continue to invest in tobacco companies; the same group of researchers published an article in 1995 that reported similar results. (Source: Join Together, 6/9/09) (with our comment)

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Researchers from the Curtin University of Technology in Australia have uncovered some of the secret workings and concerns of the international alcohol industry.
The information was uncovered by Curtin’s WA Tobacco Document Searching Program. This Program looks at confidential tobacco industry documents that have been accessible since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) which required that millions of previously internal tobacco industry documents were to be made publicly available. “We realised that some international tobacco companies have owned alcohol companies, so we could obtain information on this industry as well,” said Mike Daube, Curtin’s Professor of Health Policy. These once confidential internal documents provide new evidence on the drinks industry’s concerns about possible alcohol control measures as well as the arguments and strategies they use to prevent any action that might impact on their sales. Top 10 alcohol industry concerns: …(Source: Eurocare Newsletter April/May 09)

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Drug-facilitated sexual crimes are increasing. The Bonn Institute for Forensic Medicine has recorded that the number of examinations on the use of intoxicants in sexual offences within their catchment area increased 10-fold between 1997 and 2006. In the current edition of Deutsches Arzteblatt International, Burkhard Madea and Frank Musshoff present the modes of action and the detection windows for the most frequent substances (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2009; 106 (20): 341-347). (Source: Medical News Today, 6/1/09)

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Surfing under the influence of drugs or alcohol are two of the prime dangers facing surfing enthusiasts, according to information presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Seattle. Other factors include wave height, board length and interactions among surfers. (Source: Medical News Today, 5/28/09)

Addiction is not a disease but rather a behavior that can be controlled, according to a Harvard psychologist who points to the fact that some addicts can voluntarily quit using to support his hypothesis. The Toronto Star reported May 16 that Gene M. Heyman, author of the new book, Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, writes that the public has been deceived by addiction experts. He agrees that individuals can be genetically predisposed to addiction, and that changes occur in the brains of addicts, but contends that the decision to use or quit remains voluntary. (Source: Join Together, 5/21/09)