www.alkoholpolitik.ch

Eurocare organised succesful event on the Social Cost of Alcohol at the European Parliament.
See here the reports and presentations. (Source: Eurocare Newsletter February/March 2010)

Consuming Kids Summit. Wheelock College, Boston, April 8-10, 2010
The values children learn in the marketplace – excessive consumption, impulsive buying, and unthinking brand loyalty – are antithetical to healthy development, independent thinking, spirituality, community, and democracy. What happens to childhood — and society — when market values trump human values? How can we make a difference? What role can parents, educators, public health professionals, faith communities, and policymakers play in stopping the proliferation of market values, and in nurturing positive values, in a commercialized world? Since 2001 we have been bringing together distinguished scholars, activists, parents, and educators to talk about how marketing undermines children’s health and well-being and what we can do about it. Join CCFC in 2010 for what promises to be our best summit yet! (Source: Marin Institute, 3/30/10) commercialfreechildhood.org, 3/30/10

With colored-coded maps published online today, Marin Institute illustrates how inflation has decreased the value of low beer taxes, while state budget shortfalls have exploded.
“Amazingly, six states have not raised beer taxes in more than fifty years,” stated Marin Institute’s Research and Policy Director Michele Simon. “More than half the states have not raised beer excise taxes in at least two decades. Legislators are ignoring a lot of revenue their states could use right now.”
The alcohol industry watchdog calls their new maps tool Neglected and Outdated State Beer Taxes. It compares for each the number of years since last tax increase and the real value decline due to not keeping up with inflation. (Source: Marin Institute, 3/30/10)

This conference provides an overview of the state-of-the-art scientific knowledge about the effects of alcohol on physical health. Leading international scientists will elaborate on their findings regarding the effects of alcohol on heart, brains and liver and the relation of alcohol and cancer. Furthermore, the public message with respect to alcohol and health will be discussed.
Start: Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010; Organisation: STAP (Dutch institute for alcohol policy) Location: Amsterdam
Preliminary programme (Source: SFA-ISPA)

Ads Enticing Them to Drink. Youth Demand State Ban on Alcohol Ads on Their “School Buses”.
Boston, MA (March 15, 2010) — Demonstrators will gather March 16th, 2010, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Boston Common, across from the State House, to show public support for ending alcohol advertising on state property, including the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), which serves as the public transit system for Greater Boston.
Brought together by the Supporting an Alcohol-Ad Free Environment – Massachusetts coalition (SAFE-MA), youth and community supporters will protest against the MBTA’s use of T trains—which serve as “school buses” for 9,600 Boston youth—to promote alcohol use. By this action, they hope to gain additional support from The Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, who will decide March 17th, 2010 whether to advance HB 1113: an act prohibiting alcohol advertising on Commonwealth property, introduced by Representative Martin J. Walsh (D – 13th Suffolk). (Source: Marin Institute, 3/15/10)

A new 6 million pound NHS campaign to reveal alcohol’s hidden effects warns people of the unseen damage caused by regularly drinking more than the advised limits and highlights drinkers‘ affected organs while they sup their drink in the pub or at home. The campaign was launched recently by Public Health Minister, Gillian Merron. It forms part of a government-wide strategy to tackle the harmful effects of alcohol and is backed by major health charities. (Source: Medical News Today, 3/1/10) Online-Comment: I have been wondering for some time already why people in the U.K. get the advise to drink double the amount of alcohol as advised in other countries on the continent. Is it the climate or the good relations between alcohol industry and government?

Dear Legislator,
I support AB 1694 — The Alcohol-Related Services Program It’s time for Big Alcohol to pay its fair share of California’s annual $38.4 billion in alcohol-related trauma care, hospitalization, treatment, prevention and criminal justice costs. (Source: Marin Institute, 2/20/10)

Drinking at the last chance saloon…or – there is no place for integrity in academic medicine.
Distinguished voices are lining up behind England’s chief medical officer Liam Donaldson in support of a minimum price for alcohol. The BMA and the Royal College of Physicians have made a good case, and this week they are joined by the combined weight of the Faculty of Public Health and the Royal Society for Public Health. These two bodies list a minimum price for alcohol among 12 policy changes that will save many lives and relieve pressure on the NHS. As the faculty’s president Alan Maryon-Davies says, in lean times such act ion is all the more essential…. (Source: Google Alkohol News, 2/7/10) schiwago.blogspot.com, 2/7/10

CALIFANO CONTINUES AS CHAIRMAN. – The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University announced today that William H. Foster, PhD, Dean of Maine’s Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service, will become President and Chief Executive Officer of CASA on February 28, 2010, succeeding Joseph A. Califano, Jr., the former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare who founded CASA in 1992. Califano will continue to serve as CASA chairman. Foster returns to the University and CASA where he previously served for ten years as senior vice-president and chief operating officer. Source: CASA press release, 1/27/10)