Alcohol News

Alcohol Action Ireland today, Wednesday 19 June, welcomed the release of the Scottish monitoring report on alcohol data. The report, from NHS Scotland, is the first to be published since the introduction of Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) for alcohol in Scotland in May 2018. In 2018, 9.9 litres of pure alcohol were sold in Scotland – the lowest level seen since the monitoring process began. Since 2010, the volume of pure alcohol sold per adult through supermarkets and off-licences has... Full Story

Alcohol Action Ireland today, Tuesday 11 June, welcomed the contribution from the BBC Panorama programme to the ongoing debate about public health alcohol policy actions.   The programme, broadcast on Monday, 10 June, and presented by broadcaster, Adrian Chiles, identified the lack of commitment from the UK government to establish statutory regulations on health information on alcohol products.   The programme also featured Professor Nick Sheron, Head of Population Hepatology Research Group within Medicine at the University of Southampton, who... Full Story

The public health community is greatly disappointed about the SpiritsEurope approach[1] to label their products. In our view, the European spirits industry refrains from informing consumers at the point of sale in an easy and accessible manner. Instead of following the EU Regulation 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, the spirits industry is granted a non-binding self-regulatory approach providing information about energy on label and information on ingredients and nutritional value online on the responsibledrinking.eu website or... Full Story

Alcohol Action Ireland today (Thurs 16 May) note the release of the survey data from the Western Regional Drug and Alcohol Task Force of 15-16 year olds in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. The extensive lifestyle survey, which was conducted by the Icelandic group Planet Youth, reveals worrying aspects of teenage alcohol use including: 77% of respondents have drunk alcohol in their lifetime. 46% report being drunk in their lifetime. 30% had tried alcohol by 13 26% report being drunk in... Full Story

Alcohol Action Ireland is calling on all candidates standing in the 2019 European Parliament Elections to make a commitment supporting the World Health Organization (WHO) view that the ‘alcohol industry should have no role in the formulation of alcohol policies, which must be protected from distortion by commercial or vested interests’.1 This view was reiterated most recently by the WHO in April 2019 stating that ‘engagement may be used by the alcohol industry primarily to serve their interests with limited... Full Story

Alcohol Action Ireland today (Tues, 12 March) note the data released by Revenue: provisional alcohol clearances and receipts 2018. This data disappointingly indicates that alcohol consumption remains stubbornly high at 11 litres per capita. Alcohol receipts for the year ended show a 1.78% rise, however when an estimated population data for 2018 is applied (CSO: population >15 years old - 3,848.4m) the figures for consumption as a per capita, stand at 11 litres, indicative of essentially a status quo, year... Full Story

The latest data from the Health Research Board (HRB: 8th March) highlights the prominent role alcohol has in so many unnecessary deaths. Alcohol was implicated in 132 deaths in 2016. That is 37% of all drug poisoning deaths; 354 deaths were recorded in 2016. Alcohol remains the number one drug implicated in deaths, alone or with other drugs, over the reporting period.                         The continued mass availability of cheap,... Full Story

Last summer (2018) witnessed a variety of incidences for holidaymakers where excessive alcohol was central - some involving significant operational cost and disruption while others, regrettably, had more tragic outcomes. These incidences must be, and can be, avoided if all parties involved – the airport authorities, the airlines, destination marketers and passengers – understand the consequences of excess alcohol and act on their responsibility to ensure a low-risk approach to the consumption of alcohol will deliver comfortable and safer travel for all.... Full Story