www.alkoholpolitik.ch

Marin Institute, the alcohol industry watchdog, released a new study today: Questionable Health Claims by Alcohol Companies: From Protein Vodka to Weight-Loss Beer. The report analyzes Big Alcohol’s latest marketing scheme to jump on the healthy product bandwagon made popular by the food industry. But, the report concludes, when it comes to alcoholic beverages, such marketing messages are “legally tenuous, morally unsound, and potentially dangerous.”
“The wine industry has been exaggerating wine’s health benefits for years. Now Big Alcohol is taking such messages to a whole new level,” said Marin Institute’s Research and Policy Director Michele Simon, JD, MPH and coauthor of the report. “Major alcohol companies are exploiting ineffective or non-existent regulatory oversight with deceptive marketing and potentially dangerous products.” … (Source: Marin Institute, 06/29/11)

NATIONAL STUDY REVEALS:
ORIGINS OF AN EPIDEMIC, TEEN SUBSTANCE USE AMERICA’S #1 PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM.
90 PERCENT OF AMERICANS SUFFERING FROM ADDICTION STARTED SMOKING, DRINKING, OR USING OTHER DRUGS BEFORE AGE 18.
ALMOST HALF OF ALL AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS SMOKE, DRINK, OR USE OTHER DRUGS.
Nine out of 10 Americans who meet the medical criteria for addiction started smoking, drinking, or using other drugs before age 18, according to a national study released today by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
Adolescent Substance Use: America’s #1 Public Health Problem reveals that adolescence is the critical period for the initiation of substance use and its consequences. The CASA report finds 1 in 4 Americans who began using any addictive substance before age 18 are addicted, compared to 1 in 25 Americans who started using at age 21 or older.
Adolescent Substance Use at Epidemic Levels:
The CASA report underscores the fact that addiction is a disease with adolescent origins. The underdeveloped teen brain makes it likelier that teens will take risks, including using addictive substances that interfere with brain development, impair judgment and heighten their risk of addiction. (Source: CASA press release, 06/29/11)

– reports the Telegraph. A survey found 47 per cent of alcopops had been on offer in the past year, compared to only 20 per cent of red wines and 10 per cent of after-dinner tipples such as port. The Health Secretary recently called on supermarkets to take further action on front of store sales as part of the controversial Responsibilty Deal. (Source: Alcohol Policy UK, 06/29/11) telegraph.co.uk, 06/05/11

The Royal College of Psychiatrists of London has published a report related primarily to problems of unrecognized alcohol misuse among the elderly. The report provides guidelines for psychiatrists and family physicians on how to find and how to treat elderly people with misuse of alcohol and drugs. Forum members consider it very important to identify abusive drinking among the elderly and this report provides specific and very reasonable recommendations to assist practitioners in both the identification and treatment of such problems. … (Source: Medical News Today, 06/28/11)

It’s considered a rite of passage among young people – acting out their independence through heavy, episodic drinking. But a new University of Cincinnati study, the first of its kind nationally, is showing how binge drinking among adolescents and young adults could be causing serious damage to a brain that’s still under development at this age.
Researcher Tim McQueeny, a doctoral student in the UC Department of Psychology, is presenting the findings this week at the 34th annual meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Atlanta. … (Source: Medical News Today, 06/28/11)

An analysis of three years worth of data from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) shows that the vast majority of alcohol sales to minors occur at locations other than the full-service supermarkets and specialty grocers that use assisted self-checkout stands.
The examination of disciplinary actions from January 1, 2008 to March 11, 2011, all public data found on the ABC website, shows that the ABC filed almost 2,300 accusations against off-sale license holders (which include supermarkets and liquor stores) throughout California for selling alcohol to minors.
Of these accusations, fewer than 7 percent were lodged against specialty grocery stores and big box retailers, most of which do not yet use assisted self-checkout technology.
Large, chain supermarkets that do increasingly use assisted self-checkout stands accounted for less than 4 percent of the accusations. Fresh & Easy stores, which use only self-checkout stands, accounted for only 2 accusations. (Source: Google Alcohol News, 06/28/11) trading-house.net, 06/28/11

On October the 27th the Dutch Institute for Alcohol Policy (STAP) will host the first European network conference on reducing youth drinking by law enforcement. Law enforcement experts and professionals from all over Europe will be able to exchange knowledge and experiences during a conference specifically focussed on enforcing alcohol legislation. Although regulations, policies and responsibilities differ by country, there are similar enforcement topics that apply to all. Effective enforcement of legal age limits is one of the main themes of the conference. Because the knowledge about law enforcement in Europe has grown substantially over the last decades it is the right moment to organise the first European alcohol enforcement meeting. … (Source: stap.nl, 6/27/11)

Analysen natürlicher Wirkstoffe scheitern oft daran, dass keine ausreichenden Mengen zur Verfügung stehen. US-amerikanischen Wissenschaftlern ist es jetzt erstmals gelungen, einige komplexe Substanzen aus Rotwein im Labor zu synthetisieren, um sie in der medizinischen Forschung einzusetzen. Bisher konnten diese Stoffe nur sehr aufwendig aus Weintrauben isoliert werden, wie die Fachzeitschrift «Nature» in ihrer aktuellsten Ausgabe (doi:10.1038/nature10197) berichtet. Der Durchbruch in der Organischen Chemie macht es unter anderem möglich, das Geheimnis des sogenannten Französischen Paradoxons zu untersuchen: Woran liegt es, dass die Franzosen relativ wenig Herzkrankheiten haben, obwohl sie viel Rotwein trinken und häufig fett essen? … (Quelle: NetDoktor News, 24.6.11)

A 12-Country European Study in Progress.
Beginning with France in the 1950s, alcohol consumption has decreased in Southern European countries with few or no preventive alcohol policy measures being implemented, while alcohol consumption has been increasing in Northern European countries where historically more restrictive alcohol control policies were in place, even though more recently they were loosened. At the same time, Central and Eastern Europe have shown an intermediate behavior. We propose that country-specific changes in alcohol consumption between 1960 and 2008 are explained by a combination of a number of factors: (1) preventive alcohol policies and (2) social, cultural, economic, and demographic determinants. This article describes the methodology of a research study designed to understand the complex interactions that have occurred throughout Europe over the past five decades. These include changes in alcohol consumption, drinking patterns and alcohol-related harm, and the actual determinants of such changes. Read More (Source: Alcohol Reports, 06/22/11)

Key points of the fact sheet are:
* Effective alcohol marketing regulations are an essential control measure in a comprehensive alcohol policy that aims to decrease alcohol-related harm and to protect young people.
* Effective alcohol marketing regulations are recommended to restrict the volume of alcohol marketing practices to protect harmful exposure to alcohol advertising among young people.
* When alcohol marketing practices are allowed, also content restrictions are recommended to allow alcohol advertisements that contain solely product information.
* Volume and content restrictions are only effective when a strong regulatory system supports the enforcement of the regulation.
* Alcohol marketing regulations in France and Norway can be seen as best practices in Europe: here strong volume or content restrictions go together with a strong supportive regulation system.
* Legislation is significantly more effective than self-regulation systems in ensuring the combination between strong restrictions and an effective supporting system.
De Bruijn and Van den Broeck (2011) have developed a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of existing alcohol marketing regulations and have used this to analyse which European countries have the best and worst regulations. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 06/20/11) eucam.info, 06/17/11