Liquor reform has become a political hot potato in New Zealand, this paper argues, and has resulted in misguided policy. Social problems caused by alcohol have meant successive governments have come under pressure to regulate sale and consumption of alcohol. One factor driving public outrage about has been reports that give outrageously high ‘social costs’ of alcohol, that discount benefits, and that have little basis economic in fact. The New Zealand Law Commission’s report into reregulating the sale of liquor was overly reliant on public health literature that made a) a series of erroneous economic claims and b) holds values based views parading as objective evidence. A Liberal alcohol regime should be continued, in which personal responsibly is emphasised.
Illicit drugs are an important public health concern. A unique approach to tackling this problem is represented in the work of the Drug Policy Modelling Program which aims to improve evidence-informed policy by reducing the gap between research and policy. There are three elements to the Drug Policy Modelling Program: generating new knowledge; translating evidence into information of relevance for decision makers; and studying policy processes. Key aspects include the use of computer modelling as a translational tool and the focus on understanding policy processes such as the role of media and politics, important in contextualising the research-policy nexus. Other features of the Drug Policy Modelling Program approach include engagement of diverse disciplines, and government researcher partnerships.
Increasing alcohol restrictions and rates of serious injury in four remote Australian Indigenous communities [pdf]
Stephen A. Margolis, and others, The Medical Journal of Australia; 194: 503-506.
Objective: To document rates of serious injuries in relation to government alcohol restrictions in remote Australian Indigenous communities.
Design and setting: An ecological study using Royal Flying Doctor Service injury retrieval data, before and after changes in legal access to alcohol in four remote Australian Indigenous communities, Queensland, 1 January 1996 – 31 July 2010.
Main outcome measures: Changes in rates of aeromedical retrievals for serious injury, and proportion of retrievals for serious injury, before and after alcohol restrictions.
Results: After alcohol restrictions were introduced in 2002–2003, retrieval rates for serious injury dropped initially, and then increased in the 2 years before further restrictions in 2008 (average increase, 2.34 per 1000 per year). This trend reversed in the 2 years after the 2008 restrictions (average decrease, 7.97 per 1000 per year). There was a statistically significant decreasing time trend in serious-injury retrieval rates in each of the four communities for the period 2 years before the 2002–2003 restrictions, 2 years before the 2008 restrictions, and the final 2 years of observations (2009–2010) (P<0.001 for all four communities combined). Overall, serious-injury retrieval rates dropped from 30 per 1000 in 2008 to 14 per 1000 in 2010, and the proportions of serious-injury retrievals decreased significantly for all four communities.
Conclusion: The absolute and the proportional rates of serious-injury retrievals fell significantly as government restrictions on legal access to alcohol increased.
The overall objective of the NASDP is to construct an ongoing, regularly updated, national database of standardised alcohol sales data, which includes all Australian states/territories. In 2009, the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia made alcohol sales data available to the NASDP. Per capita consumption was calculated by relating litres of absolutealcohol consumed to the population aged 15 and older. All jurisdictions contributing alcohol sales data were consulted in relation to appropriate functional levels of reporting. Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) units were used in most cases. The ABS Estimated Residential Population (ERP) was selected as the measure of Australian population.
Patterns of mephedrone, GHB, Ketamine and Rohypnol use among police detainees [webpage]
Alex Ness and Jason Payne. Australian Institute of Criminology, May 2011
Using data collected from a sample of 824 police detainees, the present study examined the prevalence of four separate drug types—mephedrone, Rohypnol, GHB and Ketamine—that are not included in the regular DUMA core questionnaire. Specifically, data were collected from alleged offenders who were detained and interviewed (but not yet convicted) as part of the DUMA program during the third quarter of 2010 (August–October) at one of the eight data collection sites (Bankstown, Kings Cross, Brisbane, Southport, East Perth, Adelaide, Footscray and Darwin).
Queensland Health has published the Dual Diagnosis Clinical Guidelines and Clinicians Toolkit. While the guides are published specifically for Queensland Health staff, they contain a range of useful contacts and information about good practice for people with coexisting mental health and AOD problems. These guidelines provide a way forward following the release of the Queensland Health Dual Diagnosis Policy, developed in 2008. These guidelines explain the ways that the “No wrong door” policy should be implemented at the local level.
Page updated - 1st November 2011
