www.alkoholpolitik.ch

Warning labels aimed at pregnant women will be added to all alcohol products in New Zealand and Australia.

The Australian and New Zealand Ministerial Council on Food Regulation agreed to introduce labelling telling of the risks of drinking alcohol during pregnancy at a Melbourne meeting last week in response to the recommendations of the independent Food Policy and Labelling Review.
The labelling will be regulated in two year’s time. …
(Source: Alcohol Reports, News, 12/20/11) nzherald.co.nz, 12/16/11

Research that claims lifting the price of alcohol will not curb binge drinking has been denounced by a leading alcohol health promotion group.

The research, from Australia’s Griffith University, found there was no significant change to the number of occasions people engaged in binge drinking when the price of liquor rose.

However, price rises did increase the number of days people went alcohol-free, while the the number of days people consumed between one and four drinks (non-binge drinking) also fell.

But Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca Williams said overall research had shown that price was one of the best tools available to reduce overall consumption and harm.

„Price is probably the sharpest tool in the shed as a mechanism for affecting harm. The overall research is very, very clear that it does target the things we need to target, which is the early drinking in young people, and the heavy drinking.“

The Law Commission recommendations on alcohol reform included a 50 per cent increase in excise tax, which would increase the price of alcohol by about 10 per cent on average.

The Griffith University research analysed household surveys of almost 80,000 people and asked them how their behaviour would change with a 1 per cent increase in the price of alcohol.

„There may be a need to broaden the net and better identify what policies can and cannot do and investigate alternatives to price increases,“ researcher Joshua Byrnes said.

Source: Alcohol Reports, 12/20/11) stuff.co.nz, 12/18/11

Comment: No wonder they didn’t find a significant change when asking about an increase of 1 per cent. Even a 10% increase could be too little.

New research showing that some alcohol in New Zealand (NZ) costs less than bottled water spurred a leading medical organization to come out against the NZ government’s decision not to raises taxes on alcohol.
In a related news release, the New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) called on the NZ government to reconsider its recent decision not raise the excise tax on alcohol — a decision that ran counter to the evidence provided by the NZ Law Commission (pdf), the government-funded agency charged with making informed policy recommendations.
„One of the consequences of alcohol being promoted and sold at pocket-money prices is that we risk losing sight of its status as a legal drug, capable of causing serious harm to others,” said Law Commission President Geoffrey Palmer. (Source: Join Together, 10/22/10)