Alcoholics Anonymous Reviews

Scottish Labour has called for legal limits on the amount of caffeine in alcoholic drinks such as Buckfast.

The party's call came ahead of the launch of its alcohol commission, which aims to find ways to tackle Scotland's record of drink-related violence.

Labour has opposed Scottish government plans for a minimum price per unit of alcohol but said its commission would be allowed to consider the move.

Ministers said the Labour move showed "blatant disregard" for parliament.

The alcohol commission, being chaired by education expert Prof Sally Brown, will be asked to consider how much caffeine - a psychoactive stimulant - should be allowed in drinks.

Strathclyde Police recently told BBC Scotland that Buckfast, a fortified wine with a high caffeine content, was mentioned in 5,000 crime reports over three years.

Scottish Labour said Buckfast contained 281mg per 750ml bottle (37.5mg per 100ml) - as much as eight standard (355ml) cans of cola.

Another caffeinated drink, Red Square Reloaded, contained 420mg of caffeine per litre (42mg per 100ml).

Labour pointed to the 150mg per litre limit set in Denmark, Iceland and Norway.

Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: "I believe the risks involved in consuming caffeinated alcohol are so great that the Scottish government must take action.

"The research suggests you are more likely to end up in hospital or be assaulted if you drink these products."

Prof Brown told BBC Scotland's Politics Show the commission would take a wide-ranging look at the issues surrounding alcohol problems.

She added: "Just as I wouldn't be wanting to look at minimum unit pricing as the thing to solve it, I wouldn't want to look at Buckfast, or indeed even caffeine, as the other bullet that might solve it."

The commission's membership also includes Sam Galbraith, a former Labour minister for health in Scotland, Graeme Pearson, former head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and Glasgow licensing board convener Stephen Dornan.

'Scaremongering' claim

The commission, which will also look at the enforcement of existing laws, aims to influence the government's Alcohol Bill, with a report due in the summer.

It is also expected to consider issues arising from the use of caffeinated soft drinks as mixers.

Ms Baillie reiterated Labour's position on minimum pricing - a policy which has encountered strong opposition support.

She said: "The [Scottish Parliament's] health and sport committee will be looking in detail at those arguments - should the commission wish to look at that I'm not going to be stopping them - but frankly the bulk of it will be on alternative pricing mechanisms."

J. Chandler & Co, which is distributes Buckfast on behalf of Benedictine monks from a monastery in Devon, said it would give evidence to the commission.

The distributor's spokesman, Jim Wilson, accused Labour of "scaremongering".

The Scottish government said evidence on the link between caffeinated alcohol and harm was "inconclusive".

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon, said: "This is a smokescreen to hide a blatant disregard for parliament, which is the proper place to debate the issues around the Alcohol Bill - not a hand-picked talking shop designed to delay and distract.

"Obsessing about Buckfast, which accounts for 0.5% of alcohol sold in Scotland, ignores the elephant in the room, which is the excessive consumption of cheap alcohol that's fuelling health and social problems and costing Scotland billions every year."

Lib Dem justice spokesman Robert Brown said: "We need to look at ways to change Scotland's drinking culture effectively.

"More understanding is needed about why young people start drinking- whether Buckfast, beer or alcopops- in the first place.

"Simply banning one or the other will not do the trick."

BMA Scotland chairman Dr Brian Keighley urged the alcohol commission not to dismiss minimum pricing.

He added: "Surely the point of establishing an independent commission is to enable them to consider all the evidence and reach a conclusion based on what is most effective in reducing alcohol-related deaths and social harm."

BBC News

Alcohol abuse across Leicestershire costs the taxpayer almost £90m every year, it has been revealed.

The problem costs services such as the police, hospitals and social services an estimated £89.3m.

A new report exposes the bleak reality of alcohol abuse in the county with one in five adults drinking too much.

It says drink-related hospital ward admissions have doubled in five years, with the city itself ranking in the bottom 10 nationwide.

For every 100,000 people, 2,260 are admitted to hospital because of alcohol each year – the national average is 1,583.

Alcohol abuse has also had a knock-on effect on crime rates. It is now blamed for 65% of domestic attacks – 15% higher than the rest of the UK.

A big overhaul of the area's alcohol treatment services is now being planned by councils, police and health bosses to help slash the bill.

A report – put together by local council, health and police authorities – will be submitted to the Government this month as part of a new pilot project.

Leicestershire is one of 13 areas to be included in a trial of the Government's Total Place scheme, which looks at cutting down on bureaucracy, making savings, and getting better results.

The report will call on the Government to:

Allow licensing panels to consider the effect on public health when deciding whether to approve a licence for a pub or club.

Give councils more powers in dishing out penalties to those who sell booze to under-age children.

Introduce a minimum alcohol unit price of between 40-50p. Simba Kashiri is the alcohol liaison worker based at Leicester Royal Infirmary. He sees patients on wards and those admitted through accident and emergency with alcohol problems.

There are about five new patients a day – many turning out to be drink dependent.

He said: "Minimum pricing per unit would help cut consumption of cheap alcohol.

"You can buy a three-litre bottle of cider with 22 units for £3. A price of 50p a unit would put this up to nearly £11."

Mags Walsh, Leicestershire County Council's project lead for drugs and alcohol, said: "£89.3m is spent across the area to deal with alcohol misuse.

"That is made up from the cost of crime, such as extra policing, and the strain on local health services by increasing the burden on hospital staff and the cost of treating those with alcohol problems in the long term."

Other plans in the report, which do not require Government approval, include an agreement to take a stricter line on pubs and clubs which have become problematic.

Meanwhile, A&E services could get a separate unit for intoxicated patients who turn up with minor injuries.

This is Leicestershire

What would you do?

A 16-year-old comes up to you and asks for a little help. He and his friends are bored and just want to have a little fun that night.

He asks you to buy booze.

Got a problem with that?

The Pittsfield Prevention Partnership says you should, but not everyone does. And that's why the group recruited three teenagers to ask adults that same question Thursday night outside Nichols Package Store on Wahconah Street.

Michelle Messana, 17, of Lenox High School, and Nicole Akramoff, 15, and Max Pastore, 17, both of St. Joseph's High School, took turns asking approaching customers this question: "Excuse me, I'm not old enough to buy anything here. If I gave you money, would you mind buying a six-pack for me?"

Karen Cole, Berkshire United Way PPP coordinator, said most of the few dozen adults who were asked declined to help. Some of them reprimanded the youths, and a few said they would help the teens out, "If there weren't so many cars around."

Only one man agreed to help.

The teens eventually told the people they were conducting a survey for the PPP and handed the adults a card with information listing the penalties for providing alcohol to minors, which include arrest, fines up to $2,000 and imprisonment up to six months.

Cole, PPP member Jackie Elliot and an undercover Pittsfield police officer waited in a car in the parking lot to make sure everything went smoothly.

Cole said the survey was part of a partnership with MADD Massachusetts, which has conducted these surveys in other parts of the state.

"We did this as a chance to educate the public on the laws," Cole said. "I think it should make a lot of people think twice, which should ultimately save lives."

The teens selected to help out are from the district attorney's youth advisory board.

Messana, a junior, said she was nervous at first when she approached the adults.

"But it was definitely an interesting learning experience," she said. "Some of the people got really mad, but then their attitudes changed when we told them this was just a survey.

"Alcohol can really screw up young kid's lives," she said." They make bad decisions, and if they get behind the wheel, it can be horrible."

The PPP is a group of residents, parents and community leaders that are targeting substance abuse among youths and hoping to educate the population on the negative effects of alcohol and drugs.

Cole said similar surveys will be conducted in the future. In December, members of the PPP and 15 area high school students visited liquor stores to attach stickers on drinks that read: "Hey you, did you know it's illegal to sell alcohol to minors?"

A few months before that they sent 21-year-olds to 70 bars, restaurants and package stores in Pittsfield to see if they were carded. Cole said 87 percent of the establishments asked for ID.

Nichols owner Greg Babich supports the work of the PPP and gave the OK for the teens to conduct Thursday's survey outside his store.

"We take this very seriously here," he said. "We're always on the lookout for suspicious buying. I have four teenage daughters, so it's something I'm sensitive to."

Berkshire Eagle

British officials unveiled shatterproof pint glasses Thursday, swearing that the country would save billions in health-care costs by coming up with a glass that doesn't double as a lethal weapon.

But no officials were talking about reforming the British binge-drinking culture at the root of the problem.

There are about 87,000 alcohol-related glass attacks each year, with many resulting in hospital visits, Home Secretary Alan Johnson said as he introduced the two prototype shatterproof pint glasses.

Two types of shatterproof technologies are under study: one has a thin bioresin coating on the inside that strengthens it, and the other bonds two thin layers of glass together in the same way as car windshields. Both are difficult to break and keep the shards together if they do fracture, rendering them useless as weapons.

The government is touting the prototypes as the first significant improvement in bar glassware in decades. The plan is to introduce the new glasses for use on a voluntary basis in pubs if tests show they are durable, cost-effective and safe.

Half of all violent assaults in Britain are alcohol-related, and it has become common for drinkers to smash glasses and use them as weapons, said Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, a charity working to lessen alcohol abuse in Britain.

The government estimates alcohol-related problems cost the National Health Service $4.3 billion a year.

A shatterproof pint could still be used as a club in a fight, but it wouldn't produce lethal shards of glass with the cutting power of a sharp knife.

The new glasses will be used on a trial basis by a major pub chain that was not named.

Plastic glasses were not an option because experience shows that drinkers are not happy with them, said Matt Cotterill, creative director at Design Bridge, which helped design the new glasses.

Seattle Times

A Queensland parliamentary inquiry has been told the rise of a binge-drinking culture has led to a rapid rise in the number of alcohol-related trauma patients.

Royal Brisbane Hospital's (RBH) emergency department director Dr Alan O'Connor told the inquiry there have been 5,000 patients treated for alcohol-related trauma in 2009 - up about 1,500 since 2006.

Dr O'Connor says the majority are young men who often display signs of alcoholism.

"We always picture our alcoholic as being in a room on his own, mid-50s and drinking his bottle of whisky, but in fact the alcoholism that we see consists of mainly binge-drinkers - people who drink for three to four days of the week but drink very heavily," he said.

One response could be to allow high school students to tour the RBH emergency department as part of a program to witness first hand the effects of alcohol-fuelled trauma.

The hospital is negotiating with the licence holder of a Canadian program that aims to prevent alcohol trauma in young people.

Dr O'Connor says under the program students would receive lectures, be shown where patients end up and possibly even speak with them.

"I think it will give them a wake-up call and I think it will allow students to see alcohol-related violence and trauma is a reality," he said.

"The Canadians have shown it has reduced the number of those students who may be involved in problems in the future."

Meanwhile, inquiry chairwoman, Queensland MP Barbara Stone, says emergency department safety needs to be addressed to reduce the number of attacks on hospital staff.

She says emergency healthcare workers deal with an unacceptable level of abuse from intoxicated patients.

Ms Stone says Queenslanders would be shocked by the level of violence directed at both medical staff and police.

"Most people will agree that people that we call on to help us when we need them like our nurses, like our ambulance officers, our firies, our police officers - they're the people we call when we need them and they're being treated like this," she said.

"They're being attacked - they're being abused - I don't think anyone out there expects those people to be treated like that."

Ms Stone says the Law, Justice and Safety Committee will look into the effectiveness of education and preventative health programs to combat violence.

"The fact that people are asking for harsher penalities is certainly something the committee must sit down and have a look at," she said.

The inquiry's report is due to be handed to Parliament on the March 18.

ABC News

Does your child get drunk? How do you know? Do anyone else’s kids drink? Think it can’t happen to you? Maybe you don’t have adolescent children, but you drive on the roads here. Do you want a drunken teenager coming at you in the left lane? This is your issue too.

Every day 4,500 young people under the age of 16 take their first drink. Obviously, there are a lot of great kids who don’t do this. But for many, it becomes a real problem. One thousand seven hundred college students die each year of alcohol-related causes — far more than drug-related deaths. Adolescents who start to drink before they are 18 are four times more likely to end up alcohol-dependent than if they had waited until the legal drinking age of 21.

Locally, 30 percent of students have admitted to drinking regularly, 3 percent said they drink every day, and 7 percent said they drink several times a week. Twenty percent of students admitted to having gotten high at high school. Did we know about this?

There has been a cultural shift for young people and booze. Increasingly kids are taking their first drink as young as 9 or 10 years old. Their attitudes seem more aggressive, with the goal being not to drink, but to get drunk. On some campuses, college drinking is out of control.

They learn it early. Advertising on billboards and in magazines makes drinking look benign, casual, sexy, and cool. Gas stations have turned into minimarts, selling beer and liquor made to taste like lemonade. Alcohol brands’ sponsorship of pro sports, rock concerts, golf, and Nascar has exploded. Every outdoor event and parade now has a beer tent. Even the mundane parking lot has become a mecca for aggressive alcohol tailgating. It teaches our children lessons.

The number-one place teenagers get alcohol is at home. Sometimes older friends or siblings buy it for them. And sometimes parents give it to them. With continued use, alcohol damages the memory and reasoning parts of the brain. It impairs judgment, injures the liver and stomach. Some of this can’t be reversed.

This is not just an individual issue, it’s a community issue. Some widely held attitudes can contribute to the problem. Here are examples.

1. All kids drink. We drank when we were young, it’s just a rite of passage. They’ll grow out of it.

2. As long as they don’t drive, it’s not a problem. It’s not that harmful.

3. I’d rather have my child drinking at my house than drinking somewhere else. At least I know they’re safe, and I know who their friends are.

4. Nobody has the right to tell me what I can do in my own home.

There are mistakes here. If you condone any drinking by young people, a significant number of these kids will go on to have a problem as they get older. You are just helping that young person become an alcoholic.

You do not have the legal right to do whatever you want in your own home. Serving alcohol to an under-age adolescent in your home is illegal. If a police officer catches you, he or she has the duty to write you a summons.

Lt. Francis Mott of the East Hampton Town police has been a leader in the prevention of teenage drinking. Many nights that he is on duty, he and other officers receive calls complaining of parties that are out of control. It is not unusual for him to arrive at a party to find teenagers unconscious on the lawn. He often has to call for an ambulance. Sometimes he has to make arrests at the scene.

If your teenager is drunk at a party, he or she will be given a court summons. If the police catch you with under-age young people drinking at your house, you will be showing up at court. Judges evidently don’t like this sort of thing.

Officer Fred (Rocky) Notel of the East Hampton Village police is trained to teach the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or DARE. He told me that just three weeks ago village police sent minors into every bar in East Hampton to try to get a drink. Only one establishment served a minor. Though Officer Notel felt this was a pretty good outcome, he knows that most of the problem is not in the bars.

If you discover that your teenager is drinking, Officer Notel recommends that you start with the counselors at your child’s school. Edna Steck, the director of the East Hampton Town Human Services Department, told me her team can help evaluate an at-risk child, as can the Family Service League and Phoenix House. These are resources to help you.

Don’t host teenage alcohol parties. Don’t condone your friends hosting teenage alcohol parties. Help young people find other creative options for what to do at night and on weekends. It’s not impossible to change this problem for the better if we all pitch in. Lives depend on it.

East Hampton Star

Labour last night unleashed a regime of 21-hour drinking on communities already blighted by the binge drinking epidemic.

Last year Gordon Brown admitted that 24-hour drinking was 'not working' and promised to give councils blanket powers to close pubs and bars in rowdy areas.

But when the legislation was introduced yesterday it was limited to just three hours in the very early morning - between 3am and 6am.

Critics say that for the rest of the time councils will remain powerless to protect communities from alcohol-related mayhem.

They point out that Labour has - effectively - merely replaced the 24-hour drinking law with a 21-hour one.

Alcohol Concern immediately slammed the new rules as 'too weak'.

Chief executive Don Shenker said: 'This announcement is a belated acknowledgement that the Government has not been able to tackle alcohol-related crime and disorder effectively on behalf of local residents.

'[But] these changes will still not allow residents any greater say over local licensing issues - a travesty for those who've had to suffer alcohol-fuelled nighttime disorder for too long.

'The Government urgently needs to add a public health objective to the Licensing Act and must create new mechanisms for residents' views to be considered.'

The Prime Minister secured a raft of positive headlines by appearing to sweep away the controversial 24-hour drinking culture during his speech to Labour Party conference last September.

He said it was 'not working in some places'.

Mr Brown added: 'So, we will give local authorities the power to ban 24-hour drinking throughout a community in the interests of local people.'

At present, the law does not allow a blanket ban on late licences. Each one must be considered on its merits - regardless of the cumulative effect late drinking is having on an area.

When it cannot be identified which bar is causing the trouble, town halls find it very hard to take any action.

Mr Brown's reforms were supposed to fix this by allowing blanket closures in problem areas. It was seen as an unravelling of Labour's late-night opening legislation.

But, when amendments were tabled to the Crime and Security Bill yesterday, campaigners were stunned to see the new law would be limited to 3am-6am. Even between these hours councils will need to show the restriction is necessary to prevent crime and disorder or public nuisance, or to promote public safety.

When a council proposes to use its new power, it must first invite views from everyone affected, including local residents, the police and licence holders. A public meeting could also be required. Licensing Minister Gerry Sutcliffe stood by the law. He said: 'The Licensing Act has done a great deal to make it easier for local residents and councils to deal with alcohol-related nuisance and disorder, and the number of 24-hour licences remains low.'

He added: 'But we recognise that some concerns still exist about anti-social behaviour, and are determined to give councils the powers they need to act.'

A Daily Mail campaign, backed by police, doctors and judges, opposed 24-hour drinking and predicted it would be a disaster.

The Tories say the Government is responsible for much of the misery it is now attempting to tackle.

Last year, there were 973,000 violent attacks where the offender was under the influence of alcohol - almost half of all violent incidents.

Police have warned their resources have been stretched to breaking point dealing with fights in the early hours - leading to fewer officers on the beat during the day.

Daily Mail

Alcohol brands could be forced to display health warnings on labels under measures being considered by the Department of Health.

At the launch of the DoH’s latest campaign to tackle alcohol abuse, Public Health Minister Gillian Merron said the drinks industry’s response to a voluntary agreement with the Government on labelling had been mixed and that it is considering legislation to ensure all alcoholic drinks carry health information.

The voluntary code of practice says alcohol labels should display five pieces of information - the unit content of each drink, a responsibility message, the address for alcohol information website Drinkaware, advice for pregnant women and daily drinking guidelines.

Merron says although there have been some “good” results from the voluntary code, others had been “disappointing”. Her comments follow a report by Alcohol Concern last September that found only 4% of products reviewed carried all five pieces of information.

David Poley, chief executive of alcohol industry body The Portman Group, says although all of its members carry the first three elements of the label format and some display all five, it acknowledges that take-up is not as fast as the Government would like.

“If we had better evidence of the value of putting detailed advice on labels, that would doubtless persuade more companies to comply in full,” he adds.

Marketing Week

Police chiefs say there is still a 'core of drivers' who continue to flout the law by getting behind the wheel while over the drink-drive limit.
Their comments come after Nottinghamshire Police revealed it had breath-tested almost 3,000 motorists during the force's biggest ever campaign to catch drink-drivers during the Christmas and New Year period.

A total of 2,810 tests were carried out between 1st December and 1st January, with 191 found to be over the legal limit of 35mgs of alcohol in 100mls of breath, or failed to provide a sample and arrested –– compared to 164 arrests the previous year.

The hard-hitting campaign brought an end to a year that saw the force breath-test more than 13,200 drivers, almost double the figure for 2008 –– with 1,789 found to be over the limit.

Said Chief Insp Andy Charlton, head of roads policing: "We want to reassure the law abiding majority that we are doing all we can to keep the roads safe and let the drink driver know that we are going to do all we can to catch you. If anyone is in any doubt, then the message is, quite simply, don't do it.

"Sadly, people were killed and seriously injured on our roads in 2009 because of alcohol consumption by the driver, so our effort will continue because the problem hasn't gone away.

"What our campaign in December and our experience throughout the year tells us is that there is still a core of drivers out there who continue to take risks with their lives and the lives of people in all the communities of Nottinghamshire."

Anyone who sees someone getting behind the wheel after drinking should contact Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Ashfield Chad

Dutch teens who were allowed to drink alcohol at home drank more outside the home than their peers and -- along with other teens who drank -- were at increased risk of developing alcohol problems, according to researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen.

The study authors tracked 428 Dutch families with two children ages 13-15. They found that teens who drank at home also drank more on their own, and vice-versa, suggesting that teen drinking begets more teen drinking regardless of setting.

"The idea is generally based on common sense," said researcher Haske van der Vorst. "For example, the thinking is that if parents show good behavior -- here, modest drinking -- then the child will copy it. Another assumption is that parents can control their child's drinking by drinking with the child."

However, the study demonstrated that, "If parents want to reduce the risk that their child will become a heavy drinker or problem drinker in adolescence, they should try to postpone the age at which their child starts drinking," said van der Vorst.

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