Findings bulletins: minimum pricing beats tax rises, social norms for prevention & more

Recent bulletins from the drug and alcohol bank:

Minimum pricing for alcohol targets harm better than tax rises

Whether alcohol tax rises would be an acceptable and effective alternative could determine the legality under EU law of Scotland’s law permitting a minimum unit price for alcohol. This analysis predicts tax rises would curb consumption and save lives, but not without perhaps unacceptably hitting the pockets of non-harmful drinkers.

‘Everyone’s not doing it’ message offers hope for prevention

Science is littered with discoveries which became tarnished as accumulating data forced a reappraisal. Normative education (contrasting how common people think substance use is among their peers with the reality) retains some of its shine, but what seemed the great hope for school- and college-based prevention has become contested territory; part of the problem is that youngsters who drink heavily or use drugs often do have friends who do the same.

Alcohol treatment medications work as well in Europe as elsewhere

Whether differences between the patients mean impacts of the alcohol treatment medications acamprosate and naltrexone vary between Europe and the USA was the issue which motivated this fresh analysis of randomised trials. It confirmed the medications’ efficacy and found no evidence that this differed in European trials versus those conducted elsewhere.

“Inconclusive” verdict on brief alcohol advice for young emergency patients

“Inconclusive” was the verdict of a review which aimed to assess the effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions among patients aged 11 to 21 attending for emergency care in the USA. Most promising targets seem to have been the more heavily or irresponsibly drinking among patients who were young adults rather than adolescents.