Vol. 34 No. 2 December 2012 Contents (Click on an item/ page no. to be taken directly to your choice of article) News from around the world 2 Wine and spirit sales volumes fall in UK 27 Medical News DfT announce changes in UK drink drive legislation Per-capita alcohol intake and all-cause mortality in consultation Australia 3 Diageo sponsors free travel on New Year’s Eve in Scientists find gene link to teenage binge drinking 5 London and Edinburgh 28 Frequency of alcohol consumption and cardiovascular Don’t Be That Someone - UK campaign risk factors: implications for drinking guidelines 6 Think! drink drive campaign to target morning after Moderate alcohol consumption may lower the risk of drivers in England developing depression 10 Whyte & Mackay ‘stay safe, have fun’ guide – top tips for 29 Alcohol and dietary folate intake and the risk of breast Santa cancer 12 Drinkaware survey suggests that kids’ attitude to alcohol is linked their parents’ habits Pre-diagnostic alcohol consumption and post- menopausal breast cancer survival: a prospective Asia Pacific: APTRA to develop responsible retailing patient cohort study programme 30 Obesity may reduce the protective effect of moderate Free taxi vouchers to help people get home safely this drinking in older adults 13 Christmas Moderate alcohol consumption may protect against Denmark: New approaches in the alcohol policy overt autoimmune hypothyroidism: a population- debate based case-control study Monitoring and Evaluating Scotland’s Alcohol Strategy Frequent alcohol drinking is associated with - 2nd Annual Report lower prevalence of self-reported common cold: a Ireland fixed price promotion ban 31 retrospective study 14 Parliament approves bill raising French beer taxes Social and Policy News STIVA Symposium on responsible alcohol marketing Survey finds young adults more likely to smoke Estonia - National strategy to reduce alcohol-related cannabis than drink before driving harm Wine in Moderation – Art de Vivre conference - OECD ‘Health at a Glance’ report 32 Building on the success: WIM achievements & the French information site assists parents in preventing way forward 15 risky behaviour of their children 33 The European Foundation for Alcohol Research and European Alcohol and Health Forum (EAHF) - Fourth The Foundation for Alcohol Research meeting on Monitoring Progress report underage drinking 16 Distilled Spirits Council fifth annual best practices NIAAA alert on the genetics of alcoholism 19 media summit brings together industry to promote European Spirits sector consolidates representation responsible alcohol advertising 34 with a focus on growth and responsibility 20 Colorado campaign encourages drivers to plan ahead to get home safely Reactions to threatening health messages Éduc’alcool launches standard drink campaign 35 Drinking among British women and its impact on their pedestrian and driving activities: A review of the State Estimates of Underage Alcohol Use and Self- literature 21 Purchase of Alcohol: 2008- 2010 36 Demos report on parents with alcohol problems 22 New NHTSA analysis shows 2011 traffic fatalities declined by nearly two percent 37 Alcohol Strategy - minimum price consultation in England and Wales 25 Washington’s Target Zero Teams Project London campaign to reduce excessive drinking 26 NTSB recommends ignition locks for all drunk drivers Unhealthy lifestyles ‘fuel liver disease rise’ - report Operation Unite: A blitz on drunken violence from the Chief Medical Officer ‘Drink like there’s a tomorrow’: Beer, wine and spirit associations launch social change initiative 38 Dr Nick Sheron announced as new alcohol network co-chair New Zealand Alcohol Law passed www.aim-digest.com www.drinkingandyou.com www.alcoholinmoderation.com www.talkaboutalcohol.com www.drinkingandyou.com NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD AIM Digest Frampton House Norway Australia Frampton, Dorchester Norway may soon have alcohol Victoria police are implementing Dorset DT2 9NH advertisements on television a new drink driving campaign that T: +44 (0)1300 320 869 after the European Commission involves scanning the license plates E: [email protected] requested that the country of cars parked outside pubs and implement the EU Television targeting the motorists on their Websites: Without Frontiers’ Directive. way home. A police official said that www.alcoholinmoderation.com Norway postponed implementing mobile scanning machines will be www.drinkingandyou.com the directive after it was amended www.talkaboutalcohol.com ‘more effective at removing high- www.alcoholeducationtrust.org in 2007 ending the prohibition risk drivers’ from roads during the on broadcasting alcohol AIM Subscription Levels: holiday season. advertisements from other Individual: GBP £ 900- countries. USD $1,250- Latvia Euro 900- Iceland Latvia is to introduce stricter Silver: GBP 1,500- regulations for alcohol retail. The USD $3,000- Spirits sales at state-run liquor Euro 2,300- Latvian Saeima has supported new shops, which have a monopoly in Gold: GBP £3,000- alcohol retail regulations which Iceland, have reportedly declined USD $5,000- state that although alcohol can still Euro 4,500- 40% between 2008 and 2011, and be purchased from 18 years, now Platinum: available on request. are expected to be down a further the buyers aged 18-25 will have to Please contact Sherry.Webster@ 6% in 2012. The figures were present an ID to the cashier without aim-digest.com for information released by the Icelandic Federation being prompted. about AIM’s subscription levels. of Trade who found in a survey that Please make cheques/drafts in 50% of respondents thought there Hong Kong British pounds sterling, dollars or had been an increase in home Euros payable to AIM Digest at the brewing and alcohol smuggling Hong Kong Police have begun above address since 2008. to use more accurate, evidential Helena Conibear – Executive breath testing devices at roadside Director Austria checkpoints after an increasing T: +44 (0)1300 320 869 number of drivers managed to E: [email protected] Youth protection measures in evade prosecution, because their Alison Rees - Editor respect of alcohol, tobacco and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) E: [email protected] pubs and clubs are to be unified levels dropped to within legal Sherry Webster – Finance and across the Austrian provinces of Subscriptions limits between the first test at the Burgenland, Lower Austria, Upper roadside and the second test at E: [email protected] Austria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Styria a police station. 791 people were Jane Hutchings – Alcohol and Vienna. The advertising of Education Outreach caught drunk-driving during the alcohol and tobacco to under-16s E: [email protected] 10 months January-October 2012 www.alcoholeducationtrust.org and their consumption by under- and 196 people were found to have www.talkaboutalcohol.com 16s is to be banned. Under 14s will caused accidents due to drunk- be able to stay in clubs until 11pm, The publisher takes reasonable care to driving (an increase year-on-year of ensure the accuracy of quotations and while 14-16 year olds will be able to 14%). The number of people injured other information contained herein, but is stay until 1am and over-16s will be in accidents involving drivers under not responsible for any errors or omissions. Opinions and recommendations quoted unlimited. the influence of alcohol went herein are usually excerpted, digested or up nearly 20% to 116 during the condensed, may be edited for continuity, period. and are only part of the opinions and recommendations expressed in the original sources, which should be consulted for details. © AIM Digest 2001. All rights reserved. Material may be reproduced with attribution to AIM. www.alcoholinmoderation.com www.talkaboutalcohol.com www.drinkingandyou.com AIM MEDICAL NEWS Per-capita alcohol intake and all-cause mortality in Australia Livingston M, Wilkinson C. Per-capita alcohol consumption As described in detail by Morgenstern in Modern and all-cause male mortality in Australia, 1911–2006. Epidemiology,(1) there are serious problems in using Alcohol and Alcoholism 2012. Pre-publication: doi: aggregate historical data from a population to estimate 10.1093/alcalc/ags123 health outcomes. He describes an inability to adjust for Authors’ Abstract bias (which may increase, decrease, or even reverse the Aims: Given the variety of relationships found between apparent risk ratio found in the analyses); unfortunately, alcohol consumption and health using individual data the conditions that produce such bias cannot be checked (both negative and positive), the likely impact of changes without having individual (not group) associations. in population-level alcohol consumption on health at the Morgenstern also describes problems from controlling population level is not clear. This paper uses historical for confounding, which is difficult to do in ecologic data from 9 to 006 to assess the relationship between studies. Within-group misclassification (everyone is not changes in per-capita alcohol consumption on total male exposed to alcohol during a period when the per-capita mortality in Australia. intake may be higher or lower) causes further problems. Methods: A longitudinal aggregate study using Australian There are statistical approaches for dealing with these per-capita alcohol consumption and mortality data from difficulties in individual-data studies, but they do not 9 to 006. Analysis is undertaken using autoregressive work with ecologic comparisons.