Sober Europe

Alcohol claims 600 000 deaths in Russia

jantore — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:37:01 +0000

Up to 600 000 russian die every year from alcohol-related causes. This is the conclusion in a study published in The Lancet. «Excessive alcohol consumption in Russia, particularly by men, has in several recent years caused more than half of all the deaths at ages of 15-54 years,» the Lancet article said. Russian men has a life expectancy of 59 years, and alcohol in believed to be a major cause of this low figure. Alexander Nemtsov, a department chief at the Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry, says to Reuter that the estimated Russia’s annual consumption at 15 litres of pure alcohol per capita, including children and elderly people.

To curb this the government is now planing a serie of measures to combat alcohol abuse. President Dmitry Medvedev has said though that the problem «»cannot be resolved with the help of stupid bans…»

Norwegian women drink more

jantore — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:15:56 +0000

Norwegian womens level of drinking is soon equal with men, shows a new report from the The Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research. Young adult women in Oslo, the capital, drinks the most. Even though men still drink more than women, the difference has decreased. The percentage that are abstainers are stable, but those who drink are doing it more often and more.

Mimicking men
- Women are “mimicking” men. Since the male drinking pattern are more accepted in society, women takes after mens drinking habits, and not the other way around, says professor Edle Ravndal at SERAF (Center for drugs- and dependencies reseach to the Norwegian daily Dagbladet. In the book “Women and alcohol”, where Ravndal are co-author it says that women often attach there use of alcohol to male drinking-patterns, and that women therefore might have indirect use of prevention activities targeted med.

Young adult in Oslo drink most
Single women with higher education and high income drink most, and woman living in the Oslo-region drink more than in all other regions. Woman drink the most when they are between 20 and 30 years old. This is a phase of life which are marked by few familiy-obligations together with economic independence. That woman, and not just men, increasingly are living through such an economic independent and “child-free” young adult-phase, might also have an independent effect on the increase of womans alcohol use. That the drinking pattern between men and woman are more similar than earlier can in others words be explained be the fact that woman and mens life patterns are more similar in 2004, than in 1973.

Young adult womans consumption decreases and changes with age, probably because of increased care-obligations. This reduction are weaker though among woman in the Oslo-area than in other regions. Wedøy and Skretting are pointing out in the report that higher alcohol consumption among woman in an fertile age is a risk for fetal damage.

More alcohol-related injuries
The youngest in the report, which were 15-20 years old when they were interviews, showed an increased tendency to end up in fights. Other than that woman create less damage on “third-persons” when they are drinking, like fights or drunk driving, than men. The number of alcoholrelated injuries where woman are treaded has increased last 10 years. But both when it comes to how much and type of injuries there is less knowledge about the consequences of alcohol for woman health than for men. Regardless of this the autors are warning that the increase in consumption might have negative consequences for woman health in the future.

Minimum alcohol pricing would save thousends of lives

jantore — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:31:34 +0000

The discussion about minimum alcohol pricing in Britain goes on. Prime minister Gordon Brown has earlier said that this was out of the quesion since it after his opinon would «punish the majority of responsible drinkers». But several researcher now says that a measure like this would be effective in curbing alcohol consumption in Britain. A moderate drinker would not be very affected by a minimum price. Researchers at Sheffield University says that a 50p per unit minimum would add just £12 a year to the drinks bill of the moderate drinker however someone drinking at harmful levels would be forced to pay £163 a year more.

More on this in the artice from The Telegraph.

Youth Health Initiative

jantore — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:14:46 +0000

The European Commission has started up a project trying to reach young people, and encourage them to be active partners in promoting their health.

The chief aim of the project is
* To prioritise the health of children and young people in Europe.
* To highlight important health-related youth issues that the Commission is working on, including healthy life-styles, education, workplace, media and healthy environments.

A website has been set up here.

A 2-day conference will be held in Brussels in cooperationm with the European Youth Forum on 9 july. Around 400 people are expected to attend. The project also consist of a competition where youth between 15 and 25 years old are challenged to share their views about health issues in the form of a drawing, poster, photograph or video expressing their ideas.

Commision report concludes higher alcohol prices would reduce consumption

jantore — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:10:36 +0000

DG Sanco released on april 6th a report concerning the affordability of alcoholic producs across Europe, and of the potential impacts of affordability on harmful use of alcohol. The report was conducted by Rand, a nonprofit research organisation, for the European Commission.

The major findings in the report is

There has been a decline in the real value of alcohol excise duty rates across the EU
The real value of excise duty rates for most alcoholic beverages has gone down since 1996 in the vast majority of EU Member States. Notable exceptions are the UK and Italy, which have seen an increase in the real value of excise duty rates for beer; with an increase for
wine too in the UK.

There is a trend across the EU towards more off-trade alcohol consumption, which tends to be cheaper than alcohol sold on-trade.
On-trade refers to pubs, clubs, restaurants and other retailers selling alcohol for consumption within the venue. Off-trade refers to
supermarkets and off-licences, selling alcohol for consumption elsewhere. In countries such as the UK, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Ireland and The Netherlands, off-trade alcohol sales appear to be growing relative to on-trade.

Alcohol has become more affordable across the EU since 1996
The affordability of alcohol is a composite measure looking at the net effect of price and income. The affordability of alcoholic beverages has increased in all countries examined, apart from Italy. The analysis indicates that across the EU, 84% of the increase in alcohol affordability was
driven by increases in income, and only 16% was driven by changes in alcohol prices. This is primarily because while incomes went up considerably across the EU, the relative price of alcoholic beverages has remained relatively stable, or fallen at a lower rate than the
income increases.

There is a positive relationship between alcohol affordability and alcohol consumption in the EU
The balance of existing evidence indicates that there is a negative relationship between alcohol price and consumption, and a positive relationship between income and consumption.

There is a positive relationship between alcohol consumption and three types of harms: liver cirrhosis, traffic injuries and traffic deaths
The analysis suggests positive, statistically significant associations between alcohol consumption and three indicators of harm: fatal traffic accidents, (non-fatal) traffic injuries and liver cirrhosis. More specifically, they find that a 1% increase in per capita alcohol
consumption is associated with an increase of 0.85% in fatal traffic accidents, 0.61% in traffic injuries, and 0.37% in the incidence of liver cirrhosis within the same year.

The report concludes that in combination with the existing body of research on the link between alcohol price/income/affordability and consumption, and on the direct link between alcohol price/income and harms – provides strong support for the use of alcohol pricing
policies as a potentially effective measure to curb hazardous and harmful drinking in Europe. The report also highlights how cross-border alcohol shopping for personal use has negative implications for the importing country.

Even though changes in alcohol pricing policy could have positiv eimpact on alcohol consumption the report also accknowledge that
increases in the minimum excise duty or revisions to indicativ elevels for personal use for cross-border alcohol purchases seems unlikely because of single markets priorities and the need for consensus by all member states in EU fiscal policy.

These conclusions was written in the summary, for the whole report go here.

Many employees at pubs have drinking problems

jantore — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:05:40 +0000

A study where 200 employees at pubs and nightclubs in Stockholm has showed that half of those between 20 and 25 years have so big drinking problems that they could have need for treatment. The average in the whole population is three precent. 74% of men and 84 percent of women was categorized «risky alcohol habits», 33 percent of men and 40 percent of women could also placed in the group «problmatic alcohol habits» and 14 % of men and 16 % of women was seen to have «very problematic alcohol habits».

Håkan Leifman, at STAD who works with prevention, says that this serious especially because the workers are relatively oung. If they continue to drink like this the risk is big that the will end up as alcoholics, he says to the paper Dagens Nyheter.

Passive drinking: a concept whose time has come

jantore — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:24:11 +0000

Britains Chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, published his annual report last week where he among other things advocated minimum prices on alcoholic beverages. In the report he also put much emphasis on the harm alcohol use have on others than the drinker him- and herself.

In the effort of curbing smoking second-hand smoking or passive smoking has been one of the strongest arguments. Donaldson says that when he in an earlier report called for passive smoking to be taken seriously it was because common knowledge was not being translated into a common will. Dangers of passive smoking was well known, but little action happened. Smoking was simply the social norm in certain environments. In 2007 public places and workplaces become smoke-free. Donaldson feels that much of the success when it comes to curb smoking can be contrubuted to the realization that smoking is not simply a problem for those who smoke, it is a wider problem for society.

The chief medical offiser also writes that there are a lot of similarities between alcohol and smoking, and that the concept of passive drinking might be a fruitful one. Drinking alcohol is a deeply integrained part of english society. The average intake per adult is equivalent to 120 bottles of wine. Since 1970 the consumption has increased by 40%. The consequences of passive drinking includes harm to the unborn fetus, acts of drunken violence, vandalism, sexual assault and child abuse, and a huge burden both socially and economically by the society and formost for the friends and family who care for those damaged by alcohol. Up to 1,3 million cildren are adversely affected by family drinking in England and around a quarter of child protection cases involve alcohol. 7 000 people where injured in road accidents, and according to the British Crime Surveys figures for 2007/08 around 125 000 instances of alcohol-related domestic violence happened during the year. Aggresive behaviour resulting from alcohol misuse is a major cause of street violence. A survey of 30 000 adults in the North West of England in 2008 found that 45% avoid town centres at night because of others drunken behavior.

The chief medical officer ends with recommending that passive drinking should be acknowledged as a key issue. It should be a consolidated rationale for action and be the basis of a national campaign. Passive drinking kills, ends Donaldson – «England is drinking far too mych. Engand has an alcohol problem. Alcohol is harming society. Alcohol is not simply a problem for the minority who are dependent on it – it is a problem for everybody.»

The whole report can be read here.

Heavy episodic drinking up among european youth

jantore — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:04:16 +0000

ESPAD – the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs – released their report for 2007 on march 26th. Data is collected on substance use among 15-16 ear old european in 35 countries. This is the fourth report of it`s kind.

Among the findings are that 82% of the students have drunk alcohol last 12 months, 61 last 30 days, which are more or less the same as in previous studies. Heavy episodic drinking have increased though from 35% in 2003, to 42% in 2007. During the last 15 year heavy drinking has increased with 15%. The gap between boys and girls in drunking habits also seems to diminish, which is verified also by other surveys. In Norway actually more girls and boys told about heavy episodic drinking last year. This development can eplain most of the increase last years.
Drinking habits varies between countries with for instance the nordic countries consumating more alcohol when they drink, even though fewer say that they have drunken last year.

Among students who had tried illicit drugs, most had tried cannabis. Lifetime cannabis use was reported by 19% of the students while 7% had tried one or more of the other drugs. More boys than girls had used cnnabis. The reports concludes that the overall impression is that the increase in illicit drug use between 1995 and 2003 has come to a halt, if not a decrease in the report for 2007.

Nine key variables were selected to give an overview of the 2007 results per country regarding consumption of sigarettes, alcohol and illicit drugs and heavy drinking. the countries that scored aove or around averae for most of the nine measures was Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Isle of Man, the Slovak Republic and United Kingdom. Countries mosty around or below average are Armenia, Cypros, Greece, Iceland, Portugal and Romania.

When it comes to sigarettes the trend is that students smoke less, or that the situation is stabil.

The report concludes in the end that the overall impression of the long-term changes in substance use among the ESPAD students, bas on countries with such data, is one of an improved situation, apart from the heavy episodic drinking measure which display an increase.

The whole report and a summary can be read here.

Scottish licensing bil delayed

jantore — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:35:46 +0000

While Gordon Brown has spoked against a minimum prize on alcohol, the SNP government in Scotland has included it in their plans for reducing alcohol harm in Scotland. Originally it was ment to be brought forward as part of a combined Criminal jsutice and Licensing Bill. But after coming under pressure from opposition the minority government has decided to separate the two. This means that the changes probably will be delayed.

Besides a minmum prize, the SND government also propose to ban discount deals on alcohol and restrict the display and marketing of drink to specific areas within off-sales premises.

The scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon says to BBC that «Scotland’s alcohol misuse problem is estimated to cost our country at least £2.25bn per year in extra services and lost productivity, and professionals are agreed the threat posed to our national health from current levels of consumption is very great.»

Finland raises alcohol taxes

jantore — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:26:44 +0000

After Finland lowered their alcohol duties in 2004 with 33% they experienced a rapid increase in consumption and harm from alcohol use. Police reported of an 25% increase in drunk-driving, alcohol-ralated violence increased with 20% the year after the tax reduction, and consumption increased with around 20%.

Since then taxes has been raised, and now the finish governement again has announced an a ten per cent increase from october. Duties on spirits will rise more than those on mild beverages.