Australia: Alcohol delivery services a factor in rising Australian suicide rate: health advocates
Editor: Yurou
June 5, 2019
CANBERRA, June 5 (Xinhua) — Public health advocates have called for Australia’s government to crack down on alcohol delivery services to tackle the nation’s rising suicide rate.
In a submission to the Productivity Commission’s review into mental health, the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) urged the government to “explicitly recognize the role of alcohol in suicide.”
FARE, an independent organization committed to stopping the harm caused by alcohol consumption, wants the government to introduce new regulations on late night and online sales of alcohol.
The organization claims that nearly 6,000 lives are lost every year because of alcohol and a further 144,000 people are hospitalized.
Chief executive Michael Thorn told Fairfax Media on Wednesday that alcohol is a factor in 40.6 percent of suicides, homicides and other sudden deaths in New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released in September 2018 revealed that 3,128 Australians took their own lives in 2017; 262 more than the previous year.
“The prevalence of alcohol in attempted and actual suicides is extraordinary,” Thorn said.
Thorn said that the popularity of online alcohol vendors who can make deliveries within 30 minutes had exacerbated the problem.
According to a survey of Australian drinkers by FARE in 2018, 30 percent had used alcohol delivery services, with one in four doing so weekly or more often.
Tony Gill, an addiction medicine specialist at St Vincent’s hospital, believed that alcohol could make people with suicidal ideation “more likely to act” on those thoughts.
Tony Bartone, the president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), on Tuesday participated in a mental health roundtable hosted by Health Minister Greg Hunt.
The AMA supports FARE in calling for the “proper” regulation of alcohol sales.
Both organizations want a volumetric tax on alcohol, with the additional revenue spent on harm reduction initiatives.