SINCE THE early noughties, successive Irish governments have made noises in relation to tackling our ongoing and dysfunctional relationship with alcohol. And each occasion government has bottled it at the behest of the drinks industry, vintners or related lobby groups.

Those who have contributed to the debate on our engagement with alcohol did feel a sense of hope and optimism with the manner in which Minister of State at the Department of Health Róisín Shortall took to her brief, pushing the idea of banning below-cost selling of alcohol as well as highlighting lax parental attitudes to underage drinking in the home.

Shortall, in an interview in this newspaper in January, said: “We have an unhealthy relationship with drink and it is clearly a cultural issue.”

For me, that sense of hope and optimism turned to exasperation last week when Tánaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, launched a Euro 2012 Survival Guide which was developed by the drinks industry, through the organisation Meas (Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society) and Drinkaware.ie.

Meas was established and funded by the drinks industry in 2002, at a time when there was a large spike in binge drinking, and it has developed the drinkaware.iewebsite and campaigns.

The launch was also attended by Football Association of Ireland chief executive John Delaney as well as Fionnuala Sheehan, chief executive of Meas. Presumably, the Tánaiste felt it was appropriate to attend as the guide was developed in collaboration with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

A press release on the survival guide and the launch remains on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website. I’ll return to the contents of the survival guide in a moment.

Earlier this year, the National Substance Misuse Strategy Steering Group issued a detailed report intended to inform public health policy with regards to alcohol in this country.

The group was set up in 2009 and had for the first time included alcohol in its considerations. Its members were drawn from representatives of the drinks industry, Garda, health services, public sector, youth organisations and alcohol campaigners.

Meas withdrew from the final recommendations of the group and issued its own minority report, claiming that some members of the steering group were “ideologically prejudiced against Meas” and were “unwilling to acknowledge the contribution of Meas to tackling alcohol abuse”.

Meas had problems with much of the final report, including minimum pricing and a proposed social responsibility levy on the drinks industry. The steering group had called for a levy on alcohol, legislation separating sale and promotion of alcohol from food products, the ending of alcohol sponsorship in sporting and cultural events from 2016 and an increase in the price of alcohol in the medium term.

What happens the recommendations of the steering group is now unclear and at least one member of the group, alcohol addiction councillor Rolande Anderson, has concerns: “Every time with this issue, we hear the same thing of let’s set up a strategy. And then we don’t implement it. The reason is because we have very few conviction politicians. For whatever reason, they are worried about upsetting the drinks industry.”

While consumption of alcohol in Ireland has declined since record levels at the turn of the noughties, adults in 2010 were still drinking more than twice the average amount of alcohol consumed in 1960. We also binge drink more than most other European Union countries. And somewhere in the region of 2,000 hospital beds are occupied in Ireland every night due to alcohol-related factors.

Bearing all this in mind, let’s return to the Euro 2012 survival guide (why is travelling abroad something that has to be survived and not experienced?) and the particular content in relation to alcohol and sex.

The guide suggests that travellers should avoid “any appearance of being drunk” and warns that too many in-flight drinks can lead to a “killer hangover”.

In a section on food and alcohol, we are told “eating is not cheating”. Nowhere in the guide does it say to drink in moderation, or even define what binge drinking is or the harmful side effects in relation to liver disease, cancer, mental health or a host of other conditions.

In fact, Meas and drinkaware.iehave difficulties with the Health Service Executive position on binge drinking (six or more standard drinks in one sitting) and also disagree with the Government’s position on reducing weekly alcohol consumption levels in this country.

At a time when the Government is supposed to be considering implementing the recommendations of the expert steering group, why did the Tánaiste decide to launch a survival guide so closely associated with the drinks industry?

Surely, if Irish fans are in need of advice, either in relation to public health matters, or travel overseas, then this information should be issued by the Department of Health and Children, the HSE or solely by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

It beggars belief that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade could support and promote a guide which contains the following advice: “Hooking up abroad is one of travel’s greatest pleasures, not to mention one of the main reasons we go anywhere . . . ”

As a married man, I happen to enjoy the way travel broadens my cultural horizons and I would expect I’m not alone in that regard.

I believe the Tánaiste’s presence at the press launch sends out the wrong message to his cabinet colleagues, and to Ms Shortall, who may have to make some difficult policy decisions regarding alcohol in the coming months.

The sad fact is I don’t think this Coalition has the resolve to tackle this issue. And like practically every other government we have had in recent years, they will most likely continue to kick the can, pint, bottle and keg etc down the road.

The RISE Foundation is holding a half-day seminar on the legacy of shame and addiction in the family system and the devastating impact that addiction has on families on Monday, May 14.

The Foundation is delighted to have secured a number of top international speakers, Dr. Garrett O’Connor and Professor Alex Copello, who are recognised as authorities in the field of addiction.

Date: Monday, May 14 from 1.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. (with lunch from 12.30 p.m.)

Venue: Croke Park Conference Centre (Hogan Mezzanine Suite)

Registration: All attendees must register in advance.

Cost: €50 per attendee (paid in advance)

Opening Address: Roisin Shortall T.D. - Minister of State for Primary Care.

Chairperson: Rolande Anderson B.S.S. (Hon.), C.Q.S.W. - Addiction Counsellor, lecturer and published author: Living with a Problem Drinker: your survival guide (2010).

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Garrett O’Connor is former Chief Psychiatrist of the Betty Ford Center, one of the USA’s leading addiction treatment facilities, and former President of the Betty Ford Institute for Education, Research and Prevention in Addiction. He is an internationally recognised expert with wide experience in the field, and has held senior faculty positions in the Departments of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and UCLA, where he was Medical Director of Alcohol and Drug Treatment Programmes at both institutions. He has written articles and lectured on addiction topics in many countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, the U.K., Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Iceland, and Nicaragua.

Prof. Alex Copello Bsc, Msc, Phd, is Professor of Addiction Research at The School of Psychology, University of Birmingham and Consultant Clinical Psychologist with the Birmingham and Solihull NHS Foundation Trust addiction services. His interests include the study of the impact of addiction upon families and the development and evaluation of family and social network based interventions. Alex has been involved in international cross-cultural research assessing the impact of addiction on families in Mexico, Australia and Italy. He publishes regularly in scientific journals and has co-authored/edited a number of publications including: Living with Drink: Women Who Live with Problem Drinkers (1998); Substance Misuse in Psychosis: Approaches to Treatment and Service Delivery (2002) Cognitive Behavioural Integrated Treatment (2004), and Social Behaviour and Network Therapy for Alcohol Problems (2009).

Stephen Rowen - Senior Addiction Therapist with The RISE Foundation (Former Clinical Director of the Rutland Centre)

Frances Black - Founder and C.E.O. of The RISE Foundation

The question now is – what are the odds of alcohol sponsorship of sports coming to an end, even a phased one?

What has been forgotten in the current debate is that the phasing out alcohol sports sponsorship has been under consideration since the time of the previous Government. A Government decision dated 22nd April 2008 agreed to the establishment of a working group to deliver on the commitment in the Programme for Government to: “Discuss the question of the sponsorship of sporting events by the alcohol industry with a view to phasing it out.”

Alcohol Action Ireland was on the working group and subsequent National Substance Misuse Strategy steering group.

Two opposing views emerged from the 2008 working group which can be summed up as: alcohol sponsorship of sports needs to end because of the human and financial costs and alcohol sponsorship of sports is just another way of advertising and selling alcohol. The other view was that due to the huge contribution sports provides to health and communities, that any reduction in revenue to sports would be detrimental and that sports in Ireland cannot do without alcohol money. Unsurprisingly, no agreement was reached between two diametrically opposing views.

The public health team, for want of a better term, based their assertions on the following:

·         One in four deaths of men between the ages of 15 and 39 in Ireland is alcohol-related

·         The World Health Organisation states that to reduced alcohol-related harm, alcohol consumption needs to reduce and key ways of doing this are: tackling pricing, availability, promotion ie marketing, of which sponsorship is a key element

·         The aim of alcohol sponsorship is to sell more alcohol to those all ready drinking a product and to encourage those who are not drinking it to start

·         Alcohol companies actively seek to secure the brand loyalty of the new, young consumers coming on stream every year since every marketer knows that it is easier to get someone who has no brand loyalty to adapt a new one than to get them to switch

·         Alcohol companies sponsor sports specifically to gain access to lucrative, young, male markets

·         By linking with an event through sponsorship, an alcohol brand can receive numerous mentions on television and radio apart from paid-for advertising, for example in sports bulletins and programmes, as well as general talk shows and news programmes

Four years later with the publication of the National Substance Misuse Strategy, the same views were expressed, except this time the sporting bodies were even more adamant that in a worsening economic climate and with budget cuts imminent forgoing alcohol money was even less of an option that it was previously.  Meanwhile the majority of the Steering Group, with the exception of the representatives of alcohol industry and its social responsibility organization as well as representatives of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, supported the phasing out the sponsorship of sports by the alcohol industry on grounds that there was a conflict of interests.

After one Programme for Government recommendation, one working group and one steering group process, it  is clear is that any decision in relation to sports sponsorship by the alcohol industry can and will only be decided by Government.

At the same time minimum pricing, a key recommendation of the National Substance Misuse Strategy, received an unexpected boost from an unlikely source. British Prime Minister David Cameron recently announced he was going to follow the Scottish example and introduce minimum pricing for England and Wales. The Scots are pushing hard to get minimum pricing legislation through the Scottish parliament while the Northern Irish ministers with responsibility in this area have vowed to introduce minimum pricing.

The big question is – when will we see legislation in the Republic of Ireland and an end to supermarket deals where a man can reach his low risk maximum weekly drinking limit for £1.47 in Northern Ireland and €8.50 in the Republic.

 Minimum pricing has been publicly backed by Minister for Health James Reilly and Minister of State for Health Roisin Shortall and recommended by the Oireachtas Health Committee in its report. The commonly held wisdom is that the Irish Government is waiting to see how the Scottish legislation, in particular, fares against European competition law and challenges by the alcohol industry before putting forward its own legislation.

The question for anyone or organisations concerned with reducing alcohol-related harm is how do we best support the call for legislation and when that legislation happens how can we work to ensure that our voices are heard.  

Alcohol Action Ireland has been campaigning for minimum pricing over the last three years and we were delighted in the run-up to last year’s budget when the call was supported by a range of NGOs, charities, youth and medical representative groups as well as local and regionally based organisations: Barnardos, Faculty of Public Health Medicine, Foroige, Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, Focus Ireland, Rape Crisis Network Ireland, St Vincent De Paul, The Alcohol Forum, The Ballymun Local Drugs Taskforce, The Irish Association of Suicidology, The Irish Cancer Society, The Irish Heart Foundation, The Irish Medical Organisation, The ISPCC, The National Youth Council of Ireland, The No Name Club.

The challenge for those of us working for a minimum price is how we ensure we do not lost the momentum. We would encourage organisations interested in supporting minimum pricing to:

·         Find out information on minimum pricing by going to www.alcoholireland.ie or contact us directly. Contact: conor@alcoholactionireland.ie

·         Get in touch with us and we will add their names to the list of charities, NGOs and representative organisations backing the call.

·         We are also in the process of developing a short two page document explaining minimum pricing which will be available in the next two weeks on the website and in hard copy on request: conor@alcoholactionireland.ie

As the Government pledges a crackdown on alcohol prices and marketing, Peter Cheney assesses the scale of Irish alcoholism and the differing proposals to tackle the problem.

Ministers are preparing for a step change in action to tackle alcohol abuse, after an official working group recommended radical change.  Drinks industry leaders, though, are warning that many of the plans are unrealistic and populist, and will ultimately prove counter-productive.
The National Substance Misuse Strategy Steering Group has developed 45 recommendations to deal with a growing problem.

Key proposals include:

• minimum alcohol pricing;
• a social responsibility levy on the drinks industry;
• a ban on all outdoor advertising; and
• phasing out sponsorship of sports events (and other large public events) by 2016.

1.5 million Irish drinkers, according to government estimates, drink in a way that harms their health.

The Celtic Tiger boom years fuelled consumption and addiction, leaving a large number of poorer, younger and often unemployed drinkers in the recession years.  Treatment cases for alcohol abuse rose from 5,525 to 7,866 between 2005 and 2010 (up 42.4 per cent).  Two hundred and sixty-seven cases in 2010 involved children aged under 18.  The patient was out of work in 76 per cent of all cases.

“The human cost of alcohol use and misuse is too stark to ignore,” Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan stated at the steering group report’s launch.

Health Minister James Reilly commented that the report “provides a comprehensive and structured approach” to dealing with the problems.
Alcohol Action Ireland’s Director, Fiona Ryan, also gave the report a broad welcome: “Recommendations around tackling pricing, availability and marketing including sponsorship are not empty policy gestures but real ways to make a difference.”

The steering group was established in December 2009 and the drinks industry has been blamed for holding up its work,  but this has been rejected by the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland.

However, the federation was also opposed to the concept of a steering group in the first place and views alcohol as “a legal licensed product, which when consumed in a responsible manner can form part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle”.  Furthermore, alcohol sustains 50,000-60,000 jobs.

“The report did take some time to complete but this was due to the undertaking of a full consultation and deliberation process,” a Department of Health spokesman said.  He also pointed to “an opposing view of a minority” on the steering group.

Primary Care Minister Róisín Shortall and Northern Health Minister Edwin Poots plan to agree an all-Ireland minimum alcohol price by December 2012.

An Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children report published in January, goes even further.  It seeks bans on:

• home deliveries of alcohol;
• alcohol advertising on social networking sites;
• the presentation and sale of alcohol alongside groceries; and
• alcohol sales in supermarkets and garages (in the long term).

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) takes the most vocal anti-alcohol stance, having called for a total ban on alcohol advertising in 2002.  In particular, on the GAA, FAI and IRFU should “cease promoting alcohol.”

As expected, the Alcohol Beverage Federation’s three main objections are:

•    a lack of evidence to support some recommendations;

•    the “ineffectiveness of legislation” compared to existing codes of practice;

•    the “devastating impact” of several recommendations on the industry and its employees.

“We believe that responsible consumption can only come about over a period of time through a cultural change in our collective attitude towards alcohol,” its report states.

Branding

Price is not the key driver of alcohol misuse, the federation claims, and Irish alcohol prices are already high by European standards (170 per cent of the EU average).

The social responsibility levy proposal is seen as ignoring the industry’s existing finding for responsible drinking campaigns.  The federation suggests that its proceeds would be sent to front-line services, rather than alcohol-free sporting and cultural events (as intended).  Indeed, the IMO has demanded that proceeds should be ring-fenced for treating alcohol-related conditions.

Legislation on advertising “will simply drive advertising spend out of Ireland”.  The federation claims that other factors drive consumption e.g. family, friends and personality.

The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht both opposed a ban on sponsoring events.  Supporters of sponsorship fear that sport and cultural events will be damaged, with no adequate funding coming forward as a replacement.

Róisín Shortall now plans to present the steering group report to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children.  An action plan is expected later this year with draft proposals going to the Cabinet before the year’s end.

http://www.eolasmagazine.ie/fighting-irelands-national-addiction

The Government has warned that it will consider a ban on alcohol advertising unless more action is taken to reduce young people’s exposure to it.

Alcohol advertising: document seeks to reduce harmful effects

Ministers said they would keep the case for a ban “under review” as they published a strategy to combat Britain’s binge-drinking culture.

The Home Office document noted that Norway had banned all alcohol ads and France had outlawed TV commercials. “There is known to be a link between advertising and people’s consumption, particularly those under the age of 18,” it said. “So far, we have not seen evidence demonstrating that a ban is a proportionate response, but we are determined to minimise the harmful effects of alcohol advertising.”

Ministers are worried that, while the code of practice says young people should not be targeted, large numbers of under-18s still see alcohol ads.

A Government source added: “No options are being ruled out. We will monitor the drinks industry’s response to what we have said.”

The Advertising Association said: “We welcome the alcohol strategy’s assessment that there is no evidence to justify a ban on alcohol advertising. We hope that this evidence-based approach is maintained and will continue to work with the Government to ensure that, as advertising techniques evolve, alcohol continues to be advertised responsibly.”

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk

(Reuters) - People in Europe drink more alcohol than in any other part of the world, downing the equivalent of 12.5 litres of pure alcohol a year or almost three glasses of wine a day, according to report by the World Health Organisation and the European Commission.

But while the title of world’s heaviest drinkers goes to the European Union as whole, where consumption is almost double the world average, there are also wide variations in drinking levels between sub-regions, as well as big differences in how frequently, where and when people drink.

Zsuzsanna Jakab, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said Europe’s “dubious honour” of having double the global average alcohol consumption has “clear, recognized health consequences for drinkers, those around them and society.”

In a breakdown of drinking by sub-region, the heaviest drinkers were in central-eastern and eastern Europe - consuming 14.5 litres of pure alcohol per adult per year compared to 12.4 litres in central-western and western Europe, 11.2 litres in southern Europe and 10.4 litres in Nordic countries.

But the report found a different picture when it analysed these data weighted against indicators of so-called hazardous drinking - such as drinking outside mealtimes, drinking in public places and irregular, heavy so-called “binge” drinking.

In this context, Nordic countries clocked a hazardous drinking score of 2.8 - in a range where 1 is least detrimental and 5 is most detrimental - while central-eastern and eastern Europe scored only slightly higher at 2.9.

Central-western and western Europe and southern Europe had hazardous drinking scores of 1.5 and 1.1 respectively.

The report noted that there are more than 40 alcohol-related illnesses and disorders, including alcohol dependence and harmful alcohol use, liver disease, alcohol-induced chronic pancreatitis, alcohol poisoning, and fetal alcohol syndrome.

There are also many more problems where alcohol can be a contributing factor, such as injuries and deaths from road crashes as well as illnesses like cancer and heart disease.

The report found that in the European Union (EU), almost 12 percent of all deaths in 2004 among people aged 15-64 were due to alcohol - equivalent to 1 in 7 deaths in men and 1 in 13 deaths in women. Just over 3 percent of deaths were due to alcohol consumed by others.

Worldwide, some 2.5 million people die each year from the harmful use of alcohol, accounting for about 3.8 percent of all deaths, according to previous WHO data.

Steps to curb alcohol use also feature three times in the WHO’s top 10 “best buys” for public health policies to reduce the burden of chronic diseases, which kill 36 million people a year worldwide.

The WHO backs policies such as regulating alcohol pricing, targeting drink-driving and restricting alcohol marketing which it says have been shown to be effective in cutting drinking levels. “The alcohol-related burden on health in Europe is avoidable,” Jakab said.

Prices prompt heavy drinkers to cut down

OLIVIA KELLY

Heavy and underage drinkers are most likely to reduce alcohol consumption if prices go up, according to a World Health Organisation report.

All drinkers cut down when minimum pricing or price increases are introduced but the impact is proportionately higher with problem drinkers, says the report Alcohol in the European Union.

Alcohol consumption in the EU is the highest in the world: the average for adults is 12.5 litres of pure alcohol a year – or nearly three drinks a day – more than double the world average.

Socially disadvantaged people and those who live in socially disadvantaged areas experience more harm from the same dose of alcohol than those who are better off, the report says.

Increasing the price of alcohol, relative to other goods and incomes is the key to reducing alcohol-related harm, the report says. “There is an enormous wealth of evidence to show that this is a highly effective and cost-effective measure.”

North may follow Britain’s lead on alcohol pricing

UNA BRADLEY in Belfast

MINIMUM PRICING of alcohol is to be introduced in England and Wales in an effort to combat excessive consumption and prevent town centres becoming no-go areas due to drunken louts, the British home secretary Theresa May has announced.

A pricing regime will set a minimum price of 40p per unit of alcohol to deal with the problem, which costs the UK an estimated £21 billion (€25 billion) a year. Also to be introduced are a ban on multi-purchase discount deals, a zero tolerance approach to drunken behaviour in hospital AE departments, a possible late-night levy to get pubs and clubs to help pay for policing, and improved powers to stop serving alcohol to drunks.

There were indications yesterday that the authorities in Northern Ireland could follow suit. The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Belfast said its proposals were still at the research stage, but that minimum pricing was a “targeted way of making sure strong alcohol products are sold at a sensible price”.

Health minister Edwin Poots said: “In particular I am concerned by the way alcohol is sold in some of our supermarkets. It is often used as a loss leader and can be purchased cheaper than water or soft drinks.

“Given the nature of alcohol – the harm it can cause means it isn’t just another product like bread or milk – I believe that this is very irresponsible. If the supermarkets won’t behave responsibly we must look at legislation to address the issue.

“In real terms, alcohol is 62 per cent more affordable now than it was 30 years ago, and research indicates that a minimum unit price of 40p and a ban on promotions could decrease consumption by 5.4 per cent. This could mean savings of £13.5 million to the Health and Social Care Sector every year.”

According to the British Medical Association, the cost to society of alcohol misuse in the North is an estimated £679.8 million, 226 lives and 140,000 sick days each year. Any restriction, price or otherwise, on alcohol sales and availability in the North could prompt cross-border purchasing.

In London, Mrs May said responsible drinkers had nothing to fear from the policy, which she said would only deal with the cheapest fifth of alcohol currently sold.

“Some people think that a good night out is actually pre-loading, so drinking at home, getting drunk at home on cheap alcohol, going out, drinking some more, and then causing problems and mayhem in our town centres,” Mrs May told the BBC.

“There are one million violent crimes that are alcohol-fuelled in our society. We need to do something about this.”

The plans have met with opposition from the drinks industry, with some accusing David Cameron of being “seriously misguided”.

But the British prime minister said he was making “no excuses” for tackling the country’s drink problem. – (Additional reporting: PA).