Alcohol pricing policies save lives and increase profits, experts say

Canadian approach has an international impact

2012-12-10

(Press-News.org) For immediate release – Dec. 10, 2012 (Toronto) – Setting minimum prices for alcohol increases health and economic benefits, say international experts, who met today for a seminar on alcohol pricing and public health.

The meeting — sponsored by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), the Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia (CARBC) and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA) — focused on new analyses on Ontario and other provinces where minimum pricing policies have been implemented for a number of years.

Alcohol costs the Canadian economy $14.6 billion in indirect healthcare and social costs each year. Second only to tobacco, alcohol is a major contributor to the onset of disability and disease in the developed world, according to the World Health Organization.

Research indicates that pricing and taxation are among the most effective policy interventions to decrease the harms related to alcohol use. Though minimum pricing strategies have not yet been introduced outside of Canada, various countries are now looking towards minimum pricing policies that could mitigate the illnesses, injuries and social problems associated with alcohol misuse.

CAMH Senior Scientist Dr. Norman Giesbrecht, who chaired the meeting, discussed new findings showing that those who paid less (per unit) for alcohol tended to consume more drinks. His team, in collaboration with Dr. Tim Stockwell, Director of CARBC at the University of Victoria, recently collected data from 1,000 adults in Ontario on alcohol purchases, drinking patterns and attitudes towards pricing.

"There is a lot of evidence that says higher pricing of alcohol is a powerful way to control consumption and lower negative affects," says Dr. Giesbrecht. "It makes a difference."

Dr. Stockwell's new research on the effectiveness of minimum price polices in British Columbia and Saskatchewan found significant reductions in overall alcohol consumption in both provinces. What's more, alcohol-related deaths and hospitalizations decreased in British Columbia, following increases to minimum alcohol prices.

"The evidence is crystal clear," remarks Dr. Stockwell. "It's a win-win-win situation. It means more government revenue, more profits for industry, and better health outcomes."

Despite some public opposition to setting higher minimum prices for alcohol, Dr. Stockwell says that new policies won't have much impact on the average consumer. Pricing strategies are meant to target heavy drinkers who tend to drink inexpensive alcohol.

Drs. John Holmes and Daniel Hill-McManus, both researchers from the University of Sheffield, referenced the recent proposal for minimum alcohol pricing in the United Kingdom. Many believe that that the policy model, which is based on Canadian data — partially collected by CAMH — was central to these policy discussions.

Other presenters included Dr. Jürgen Rehm, Director of CAMH's Social and Epidemiological Research and Dr. Gerald Thomas, a senior researcher and policy analyst at the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

### View the full report at: http://www.camh.ca/en/research/news_and_publications/reports_and_books/Documents/Canada%20-%20Minimum%20Pricing%20Report.pdf

For more information contact: Michael Torres, CAMH Media Relations, 416-595-6015 or media@camh.ca

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, as well as one of the world's leading research centres in its field. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental health and addiction issues. CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, and is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. For more information, please visit www.camh.ca.

The Centre for Addictions Research of BC (CARBC) at the University of Victoria is a multidisciplinary centre dedicated to the study of psychoactive substance use and addiction in order to support community-wide efforts to promote health and reduce harm. CARBC Scientists are drawn from Psychology, Sociology, Community Medicine, Nursing, Anthropology, Epidemiology, Criminology and Health Economics. The centre provides training to over 30 graduate and undergraduate students from these disciplines and also collaborates with other centres in Canada and overseas. Alcohol epidemiology and policy is an area of special interest at CARBC, please visit www.carbc.ca for more information.

The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA) provides national leadership, develops sustainable partnerships and advances solutions to ensure that all people in Canada live in a healthy society free of alcohol- and other drug-related harm.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

The chemistry of early photographs: New American Chemical Society video

2012-12-10

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2012 — The chemistry of early photography comes under the lens in a new episode of Bytesize Science, the American Chemical Society (ACS) award-winning video series. Produced by the ACS Office of Public Affairs, it is available at www.BytesizeScience.com. The video, which features Art Kaplan, of the Getty Conservation Institute, explains that the history of photography is rich with chemical innovations and insights. Early photographers came up with hundreds of different processes to develop images in unique and often beautiful ways. Kaplan describes ...

Space-age ceramics get their toughest test

2012-12-10

Advanced ceramic composites can withstand the ultrahigh operational temperatures projected for hypersonic jet and next generation gas turbine engines, but real-time analysis of the mechanical properties of these space-age materials at ultrahigh temperatures has been a challenge – until now. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed the first testing facility that enables CT-scanning of ceramic composites under controlled loads at ultrahigh temperatures and in real-time. Working at Berkeley ...

Study identifies potential new pathway for drug development

2012-12-10

A newly found understanding of receptor signaling may have revealed a better way to design drugs. A study from Nationwide Children's Hospital suggests that a newly identified group of proteins, alpha arrestins, may play a role in cell signaling that is crucial to new drug development. The study appears in PLOS ONE. More than one-third of drugs on the market work by targeting G protein-coupled receptors that control how cells communicate and function. With many hundreds of members, G protein-coupled receptors are the largest family of signaling receptors throughout the ...

Infants with severe RSV disease may be immunosuppressed

2012-12-10

Infants with severe lower respiratory tract infection caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) may have a dysfunctional innate immune response that relates to the severity of their disease. These are the findings from a Nationwide Children's Hospital study appearing in a recent issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. RSV is the leading cause of lower respiratory tract infection in young children worldwide. The majority of children hospitalized with this condition are previously healthy with no known risk factors for serious disease. Of these infants, up to 20 ...

Caffeinated coffee may reduce the risk of oral cancers

2012-12-10

ATLANTA – December 10, 2012—A new American Cancer Society study finds a strong inverse association between caffeinated coffee intake and oral/pharyngeal cancer mortality. The authors say people who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee per day were at about half the risk of death of these often fatal cancers compared to those who only occasionally or who never drank coffee. The study is published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The authors say more research is needed to elucidate the biologic mechanisms that could be at work. Previous epidemiologic ...

Overweight pregnant women not getting proper weight-gain advice

2012-12-10

HERSHEY, Pa. -- Overweight women are not receiving proper advice on healthy weight gains or appropriate exercise levels during their pregnancies, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. "Excessive weight gain during pregnancy is associated with weight retention after delivery and is a positive predictor of obesity after pregnancy," Dr. Cynthia Chuang, associate professor of medicine and public health sciences said. "Excessive gestational weight is particularly concerning for overweight and obese women given their already increased risk for pregnancy ...

Mining ancient ores for clues to early life

2012-12-10

An analysis of sulfide ore deposits from one of the world's richest base-metal mines confirms that oxygen levels were extremely low on Earth 2.7 billion years ago, but also shows that microbes were actively feeding on sulfate in the ocean and influencing seawater chemistry during that geological time period. The research, reported by a team of Canadian and U.S. scientists in Nature Geoscience, provides new insight into how ancient metal-ore deposits can be used to better understand the chemistry of the ancient oceans – and the early evolution of life. Sulfate is the ...

Prostate cancer now detectable by imaging-guided biopsy

2012-12-10

Ground-breaking research by a UCLA team of physicians and engineers demonstrates that prostate cancer can be diagnosed using image-guided targeted biopsy. Traditionally found only by blind biopsy, a procedure that dates from the 1980s, prostate cancer now appears detectable by direct sampling of tumor spots found using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in combination with real-time ultrasound, according to the UCLA study released Dec. 10, 2012 early online for the January 2013 issue of The Journal of Urology®. The study indicates that the MRI and ultrasound fusion biopsy, ...

Targeted prostate biopsy has potential to improve diagnosis of prostate cancer

2012-12-10

New York, NY, December 10, 2012 – Diagnosis of prostate cancer remains imperfect. Current methods of prostate biopsy are limited by over detection of slow-growing tumors and under detection of clinically relevant cancers. Investigators at the University of California-Los Angeles Department of Urology have found that a new technique of targeted biopsy in a clinic setting, using local anesthesia, may improve diagnosis and aid in selecting which patients are suitable for active surveillance and which need focal therapy (noninvasive techniques for destroying small tumors within ...

Renewables and storage could power grid 99.9 percent of the time

2012-12-10

Renewable energy could fully power a large electric grid 99.9 percent of the time by 2030 at costs comparable to today's electricity expenses, according to new research by the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College. A well-designed combination of wind power, solar power and storage in batteries and fuel cells would nearly always exceed electricity demands while keeping costs low, the scientists found. "These results break the conventional wisdom that renewable energy is too unreliable and expensive," said co-author Willett Kempton, professor ...

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Alcohol pricing policies save lives and increase profits, experts say

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: