Alcohol Policy UK

National Statistics: excessive drinking decreasing

Despite signs to the contrary - eg a doubling of alcohol-related death since 1991 - new figures show this:

The proportion of men in Great Britain exceeding the government’s daily sensible drinking benchmarks fell from 39 per cent in 2004 to 35 per cent in 2005. Women are less likely than men to exceed the benchmarks, with 20 per cent of women exceeding the sensible drinking benchmark on at least one day in the previous week in 2005.

Heavy drinking - defined as over eight units a day for men and six units a day for women on at least one day during the previous week - was more common among men (19 per cent) than women (8 per cent).

The recent upward trend in heavy drinking among young women may have peaked. The proportion of 16 to 24 year old women who had drunk more than six units on at least one day in the previous week increased from 24 per cent to 28 per cent between 1998 and 2002 but has since fallen to 22 per cent in 2005.

More details from National Statistics

What could explain this?  A few suggestions: culture changes in our drinking habits - are we getting the message at last, increased under reporting as opprobium grows, bigger measures/glass sizes leading to under reporting.  Or other things I haven't thought of.

Alcohol in the news 29.11.06: banning orders, saturation zone, ACAS party guidance, Scottish call for alcohol arts sponsorship ban

• Yobs in Telford will be shown the red card and banned from pubs and clubs in a scheme to be introduced across the borough in time for Christmas, it was revealed today. The Three Strikes and You’re Out scheme could see hooligans and drunken revellers banned from licensed premises, forcing them to celebrate the festive season elsewhere. The scheme was launched in Oakengates in June and its success will now see licensing officers roll it out in every area of Telford.  Shropshire Star

• Police are demanding a ground-breaking policy to make it hard for any new pubs and clubs to open in Bournemouth town centre. Officers want a presumption against granting any new alcohol licences, with applicants having to prove they will not make the town's crime and disorder problems worse. The idea, which will be considered today by members of Bournemouth Borough Council's licensing board, was first demanded by police earlier this year. Dorset Echo

• Q. What if an employee who has clearly drunk too much at the office Christmas party is planning to drive home. It's not my responsibility, is it?

A. In fact, it is. As an employer you have a 'duty of care' toward your employees and as it's the company's party, you need to take some responsibility. Think about travel arrangements and maybe end the party before public transport stops running. Or provide the phone numbers for local registered cab companies and encourage employees to use them. Hiring minibuses to take staff home is another option which would probably be greatly appreciated.  Advice on Christmas parties from ACAS

• From Edinburgh's Usher Hall, built by a distillery family, to T in the Park, the rock festival founded by Tennents, the influence of alcohol on Scotland's cultural map runs deep.  The UK-wide Beck's Futures prize for contemporary art, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and a string of arts venues are sponsored by drinks suppliers.  But campaigners against alcohol abuse oppose such ties and want tobacco-style controls on advertising and sponsorship.  The British Medical Association has been pushing for a ban on alcohol advertising since 2003. Tighter regulations, particularly in the youth market, have not gone far enough, it says.  Scotsman

Drinkaware Trust seeks trustees

From today's Guardian:

The Drinkaware Trust is a new UK-wide charity, based in London, supported by the alcoholic drinks industry, government and a wide range of stakeholders in the health, education, alcohol-related voluntary sector and other NGOs. Its purpose is to help change public behaviour and the national drinking culture, to help reduce alcohol misuse and minimise alcohol-related harm.

Launching in January 2007, the Trust has a projected budget of £12 million over its first three years. Applications are now sought for Twelve Trustees of the Drinkaware Trust.

• Five Trustees from an alcohol related non-industry background.
• Five Trustees from an alcohol related industry background.
• Two Lay Trustees with no current professional interest in alcohol.

Closing date: 18th December

£12 million, everyone, did you spot that?

Alcohol Policy UK podcast: sbi trailblazers, effectiveness review, new funding, and interventions for older people (APUK05)

00.00 Intro, music by Kaimoku

00.47 Screening and brief intervention trailblazers were launched on 20th Oct at St Georges.  The £3.2M research project will run for two years in three regions: London, South East and North East.  There are three research setting: primary care, A&E and criminal justice.  Contact the team at St Georges if you want to propose a research site, via the SIPS website.

02.29 The Review of the Effectiveness of Treatment for Alcohol Problems has been published by the  NTA (see previous post).

03.14 £15M for alcohol treatment not really news but we need to try and make sure the money is used for alcohol work and not plugging holes in budgets.  See previous post

05.02 Rain in my heart documentary by Paul Watson

05.57 Gavin Bryce, from Brighton & Hove PCT about older people's drinking.  See also Alcohol and Ageing: Is alcohol a major threat to healthy ageing for the baby boomers

13.35 Get in touch:

• email us or send an audio comment using waxmail or MP3 to [email protected]
• Leave comment on the blog
• Leave a voicemail on mobotalk (see right hand panel)

14.15 PodcastconUK was great.  Got to see/meet: Paul Nichols (podcastpaul), Alex Bellinger (smallbizpod), Neville "Interesting" Hobson (For Immediate Release), Adam Curry (Daily Source Code), CC Chapman (Managing the Gray and Accident Hash), as well as hearing some great live music (especially The Shakes).

15.35 A song for the cognitive-behavioural brigade, Bad Bad Whiskey, from "Blues Burnin' In My Soul" by Johnny Laws, Electro-Fi 

Buy at eMusic

download the mp3 file (right click), listen now, or subscribe to the podcast feed.

 

Alcohol licensing and industry news 27.11.06

• Bexley's use of new powers under the Licensing Act, to crack down on anti-social drinking, have been stepped up.  Councillors are homing in on the borough's three major troublespots of Bexleyheath and Welling town centres and Bexley Village to bring in tighter controls on licensed premises.  On Monday it launched a three-month consultation on whether to bring in a "saturation policy" under the Act to apply to all three areas.  A saturation policy would allow the council's licensing committee to refuse any new drinks licences to premises within the three specified areas, and refuse any material changes to existing licences.  News Shopper  If the consultation is on Bexley's website, I can't find it.

• A shopkeeper has been cleared by London's High Court of selling alcohol to a child, leaving Cambridgeshire County Council thousands of pounds out of pocket.  The drink was sold in a test purchasing operation by shop assistant Aziz Gholi Mehdipour who had been working in the store for about a month.  But trading standards officers believed the shop owner Fikri Kama, who was not on the premises at the time, had not done enough to ensure staff knew the law.  Kama was cleared at Cambridge Magistrates' Court in May but the council was not satisfied so it took the case to the High Court, arguing Mr Kama should have kept a "refusal book" in which staff could log that they had turned away underage customers to prove his policy was being carried out.  Now Mr Justice Treacy, sitting with Lord Justice Waller, has thrown out the case saying magistrates' were "perfectly entitled" to have acquitted Mr Kama.  Cambridge Evening News

• Pubs will be allowed to stage poker games in the latest twist of Labour's liberalisation of the laws on drinking and gaming.  Laws that have banned games of chance played for money from pubs and bars will be lifted next year, Whitehall confirmed.  And although new regulations will insist that pub poker tables host only low-stakes games, there will be no policing of pub gambling to prevent stakes being raised to high levels.  Nor will there be controls to stop poker games involving drunken players running on for many hours in bars that now have the right to open around the clock.  In casinos, alcohol is not allowed at poker tables to discourage gamblers from getting into trouble because of heavy drinking.  This is London

• Takeaways in Bishop's Stortford face being ordered to close earlier because police claim they are a magnet for late-night trouble.  Officers are bringing the action on 24 November in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the country, said district commander Ch Insp Richard Harbon.  The takeaways are clustered along Station Road and South Street, within easy walking distance of Chicago Rock Café in Anchor Street and Flaunt and Attic nightclubs in Southmill Road.  Kebabery, Master Fryer, Sheko's and Pizza Line open until 1am or 2am on weekdays and Sundays, but until 3am on Fridays and Saturdays.  Police want them all to shut by 1am on the grounds that "there have been many instances of crime and disorder in the vicinity of these premises".

Chief Supt Gary Kitching, Herts police's eastern area commander, believes there is a case for pubs and clubs in Bishop's Stortford paying for the necessary extra policing at weekends.  "There are companies out there which make an absolute fortune; thousands of pounds cross public bars within hours in the main pubs and clubs. We, as a service, have already jigged our shift patterns so more officers are out on Friday and Saturday night and the night-time economy has not paid for that."  Busy times have been pushed back to 2am-3am and the extra officers could only come from daytime resources, he said. "I already charge Luminar Leisure in Stevenage £100,000 a year for additional policing [of Stevenage Leisure Park]," he revealed. "The licensing industry has got to accept there is a cost and they have got to pay. It's wrong to pay for it out of our normal taxes."  He suggested a partnership approach if the idea was pursued and said Bishop's Stortford town centre could be easily defined to clarify which premises were included.  Herts & Essex News Online    So is this the first Alcohol Disorder Zone?

• Beer Wars: beer prices have dropped dramatically in the run up to Christmas, with high street supermarkets slashing rates in an attempt to beat their competitors.  In some cases, the cost of lager has fallen to as little as 11p per 100ml - roughly the same as bottled water - while spirits are already being sold on special offer.  The news is worrying both for health campaigners, who say it encourages binge drinking, and for pub owners whose sales in Scotland have already been hit by the smoking ban.  In its annual Christmas pricewatch, trade magazine Grocer showed that Stella Artois lager was on sale at Morrisons for just 11p per 100ml - barely 2p more than the same amount of Evian water - the equivalent of 62.48p for a pint.  The Scotsman

Alcohol treatment effectiveness reviewed published

The long awaited Review of the Effectiveness of Treatment for Alcohol Problems is now available from the NTA website, which says:

This is a key reference tool for commissioners and managers of alcohol treatment services. The review provides a contemporary overview and guide to the published international evidence on the effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness, of alcohol interventions and treatment.

Written by a distinguished panel of UK based experts this document will help to ensure that appropriate alcohol interventions and treatment are implemented. Thus it will be an invaluable aid to those close involved in the local implementation of Models of care for alcohol misusers.

Downloads
Full report: Review of the Effectiveness of Treatment for Alcohol Problems
Summary report: A summary of the Review of the Effectiveness of Treatment for Alcohol Problems

Alcohol in the news 23/11/06

• A number of Teeside off-licences have brought in a permanent weekend ban on selling alcohol to people under 21.  Six off-licences in the Saltburn area introduced the ban earlier this year and following a reduction in incidents of youngsters being drunk and disorderly, the ban is now permanent.  Traders said the self-imposed ban had not affected their profits.  Sgt Steve MacFarlane of Cleveland Police told the BBC that in the past, youths pestered older youths of 18 or 19 years to buy alcohol for them, but the ban had alleviated the problem.  Morning Advertiser

• A drive to combat excessive alcohol consumption in the Ribble Valley was launched at a Clitheroe pub. The scheme, called "altn8", is aimed at the 18 to 44 age group and encourages alternating alcoholic drinks with soft drinks to minimise the harmful effects of "binge drinking". Its Ribble Valley launch was held at the Swan and Royal, in Castle Street. The scheme also aims to cut the number of incidents of alcohol-fuelled violence, which are on the increase, particularly among the under-30s. Its message is simple – alternate drinks, alternate the days you drink and alternate venues.  Clitheroetoday

• European Union judges are to deliver a ruling in a case that could change the way shoppers buy alcohol and tobacco.  The ruling will decide whether taxes should be paid at home or abroad when people buy the goods in another country and have them delivered to their home.  It could have a big effect in the UK, where taxes are high and many Britons travel to mainland Europe on "booze cruises" for cheaper alcohol.  Bargain hunters could use the internet to find the best deal in the EU.  BBC News

Alcohol strategy posts

Alcohol Strategy Officer, Leicestershire
Closing date: 8th December
Details

Alcohol Strategy Development Officer, Greenwich
Closing date: 13th December
Details

Mental Health Bill 2006 published

The revised Mental Health Bill 2006 was published on 17 November.  It makes 7 main changes to the Mental Health Act 1983 and also introduces ‘Bournewood’ safeguards into the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The main aims of the Bill are to:

• help ensure that people with serious mental disorders can be required, where necessary, to receive the treatment they need to protect them and the public from harm
• bring mental health legislation into line with modern service provision
• strengthen patient safeguards and tackle human rights incompatibilities

What changes does the Bill make?
The Bill introduces a new, simplified definition of mental disorder to make the Act easier to use. The new definition is simply “any disorder or disability of the mind”. It does not change what is covered by the definition, but is much less complicated.

What does it say about alcohol?
The Bill retains the exclusion for dependence on alcohol and drugs to make clear that the Act is not (and never has been) to be used to force people who are suffering from no other mental disorder to accept treatment for substance dependence. The exclusion has, however, been reworded to make it even clearer that people who are dependent on alcohol and drugs are not excluded from the scope of the Act if they also suffer from another mental disorder (even if that other disorder is related to their alcohol or drug use.)

The exclusion does not extend to substance misuse (as opposed to dependence) because misuse by itself is not a mental disorder and so the Bill does not need to say it is excluded.

Further info

• Department of Health press release
• Department of Health briefings on key policy areas of the bill
• Mental Health Alliance press release Mental Health Bill still not fit for the twenty-first century
• Why Rethink opposes the bill

Alcohol in the news 21/11/06

• Norwich is becoming a safer place for weekend and night-time revellers.  Despite people's fears over the introduction of new licensing laws a year ago, police said their had been “significant falls” in violence and other offences associated with the Norwich city centre night-time economy.  Norwich is host to Operation Enterprise, aimed at reducing late-night violence in the city centre since 2003, and the local paper's Reclaim our Communities campaign, which invites families to let the paper know about any nuisance, problems, or anti-social behaviour in their area for passing on to relevant authorities.  Story at Evening News

• MP John Grogan has called on brewers and pubcos to stand together in the fight against cheap supermarket booze.  Grogan, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group, says some of the promotions in supermarkets are as bad as the ‘drink all you want’ promotions in the on-trade.  Speaking to his local paper about the Competition Commission’s supermarket inquiry, the York Press, the Selby MP said: ”The mere existence of the inquiry appears to have galvanised critics of the supermarkets. For the first time, brewers have joined pub companies, farmers, small shops and environmentalists in making critical submissions to the Commission.  Morning Advertiser  See also previous post (penultimate item)

• Glasgow: A major campaign has been launched to encourage revellers to drink safely over the festive period. Clubbers and pubgoers will be bombarded by the message to "play safe" over the next few weeks, in a bid to cut drunkenness and disorder in the city centre. Evening Times

• Edinburgh: Bottles of alcohol are to be marked with invisible ink in city stores in the latest bid to tackle underage drinking.  Shopkeepers across the south of the city are to be visited by police and trading standards officials and asked whether they object to their bottles being marked.  The coded markings, which can only be read under ultraviolet light, will allow officers to trace where any booze taken from underage drinkers was bought.  Scotsman

• Sussex Police released new figures this week showing a drop in alcohol related crime since the introduction of round-the-clock drinking.  Assistant Chief Constable Jeremy Paine welcomed the decrease in violence and public nuisance.  However, he said more needed to be done to reverse the problems of binge drinking. The Argus

• Halifax's pioneering Street Angels initiative is set to celebrate its first birthday later this month with a birthday party attended by Halifax MP Linda Riordan.  Street Angels is a partnership between Halifax Town Centre Police, Churches Together in Halifax and Halifax YMCA.  The concept of providing a safe place for those using the night time economy became a reality on 25 November 2005.  The project uses the Fairtrade Café, which is part of the YMCA building on Crossley Street, as a safe place and headquarters for the Street Angels, who patrol the streets of the town centre.  Around 50 volunteers took part in the pilot, taking Street Angels to the streets every Friday and Saturday between 9pm and 3am. The Good News  See also Norwich SOS bus podcast

• Only a fraction of alleged drug-assisted rapes in England tested positive for date rape drugs while almost all the victims had consumed alcohol, the first police study on the issue found.   None of the 120 cases of alleged drug rape examined by the Association of Chief Police Officers showed evidence of the notorious date rape drug Rohypnol, according to the report released on Thursday. Just two victims had traces of GHB, another date rape drug.  "These findings suggest Rohypnol, synonymous in many quarters with the phrase 'date rape drug', might not be the threat it is believed to be," the study said.  Scotsman