United Kingdom: Minimum pricing ‘serious ammunition’ in fight against alcohol-related harm
Press Association 2018
November 19, 2018
Minimum unit pricing (MUP) for alcohol should be implemented in all parts of the UK and extended across Europe, a health expert has suggested.
Professor Jurgen Rehm, an adviser to the World Health Organisation (WHO), suggested people should drink no more than one unit of alcohol per day.
He described the pricing policy as serious “ammunition” in the fight against alcohol-related harm and lamented the relatively low levels of use of pricing measures across Europe.
The call came amid predictions MUP in Scotland will have a “significant impact” on health outcomes north of the border.
The Scottish Government policy to set a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol finally came into force in May after years of delays due to a legal challenge.
It was estimated the move could save around 392 lives in the first five years of its implementation in Scotland, where on average there were 22 alcohol-specific deaths every week and 697 hospital admissions.
Figures presented at a joint meeting on alcohol and health in Edinburgh, led by the WHO and the Alcohol Policy Network in Europe, show the continent continues to have the highest levels of alcohol consumption in the world.
Every day, around 800 people in the EU, Norway and Switzerland die from alcohol-attributable causes and there have been “no significant changes” in levels of alcohol consumption since 2010.
Prof Rehm, a senior director at the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Canada, said a drop in alcohol-related deaths in Europe from 301,000 in 2010 to 291,000 in 2016 cannot be described as a big success.
He also pointed to “huge problems” with drinking among young people in the in Europe – particularly the widespread prevalence of binge-drinking.
“The big ammunition is using price policy, like taxation and things like that,” he said.
Asked about the likely impact of MUP in Scotland, he told reporters: “Very clearly minimum unit pricing is going to have a significant impact.”
He pointed to the “pretty great success” of similar pricing restrictions in countries such as Russia, saying it reduces consumption among binge drinkers and those with a dependency on alcohol.
Drink-related accidents, injuries, violence and public disorder will also go down with increases of minimum pricing, he said.
Asked whether he would like to see every country in Europe introduce that policy, he said: “Obviously from a public health perspective, yes, we would like not only minimum pricing policies, we would like minimum pricing policies which are relatively high …
“Price in Europe has been the least used policy measure of all the policy measures.”
Echoing that sentiment for the rest of the UK, he pointed to the country’s “unique picture” when it comes to alcohol, including problems with binge drinking and higher levels of drinking among women.
“What should play a role here would be minimum pricing in all parts of the UK,” he argued.
Dr Joao Breda, head of the WHO European Office for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, said MUP is a policy that “protects the vulnerable”.
“Issues like using price, they are very strong and very important ammunition that should be considered by all countries and it’s one of the measures that countries use less,” he said.
Prof Rehm suggested people should consume no more than one unit of alcohol per day as he pointed to figures showing 29% of all alcohol-attributable deaths in the EU are from cancers.
He hit out at past government guidelines that suggested there could be a level of “safe” drinking.
“There is no safe drinking,” he insisted.
“Low-risk (drinking) in the UK would be one drink a day.”
Prof Rehm suggested helpful measures could include changing the serving sizes of alcohol and decreasing the alcohol content of drinks, saying tests have shown people cannot tell the difference between a beer with 5% alcohol and one of 3.5%.
Responding to the comments, Dr Eric Carlin, director of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) said: “SHAAP strongly support the UK CMOs’ guidance which is no more than 14 units per week, before health is likely to be harmed.
“However, it is true to say that no level of alcohol is risk free, especially in relation to cancer risks.”
Alcohol-impaired driving and drinking at private residences
Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation
November 19, 2018
Although drunk driving prevention and enforcement programs often focus on people who drink at bars and restaurants, drinking at home is strongly associated with driving after drinking and impaired driving, and may account for about a third of all drink driving events, according to a new study from the Prevention Research Center at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.
The data used for this study were obtained from a telephone survey of 8,553 Californians age 18 and older. Respondents were asked questions about where and how much they used alcohol in the previous month, whether they had driven a car within four hours of drinking, and whether they had driven after they felt they had drunk “too much” to drive safely. (Each respondent decided how much was “too much.”)
The results of the study indicate that far more people drink frequently at home and far fewer people drink less frequently at restaurants and bars. 73% of drinking occasions were in the home while only 9% were at restaurants, 5% at bars, and 5% at private parties.
As everyone would expect, driving after drinking was much more likely to occur after any single drinking event that occurred outside the home at a bar or restaurant. However, while drinking at home was rarely associated with driving after drinking or impaired driving, there were so many of these events that drinking at home led to substantial numbers of drunken driving events.
Using as an example a typical city in California 100,000 people, we would expect to see 26,097 events of driving after drinking related to drinking at bars and 31,602 such events related to drinking at restaurants. But the same city would also see 15,411 driving after drinking events related to drinking in the home and 19,168 events related to drinking at private parties.
The study—conducted by a group led by Dr. Paul Gruenewald—suggests that drink driving prevention programs should look beyond those who drink in bars or restaurants. “‘Prevention in place’ is the new mantra for modern environmental prevention programs,” Gruenewald says. “Our ability to use social media and other methods to reach out to drinkers in all environments can be extended to encourage safe drinking practices in the home and other contexts.”
More information: Paul J. Gruenewald et al, Identifying the Population Sources of Alcohol Impaired Driving: An Assessment of Context Specific Drinking Risks, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (2018). DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2018.79.702
Journal reference: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
Provided by: Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation