Drinking and the Holidays

Alcohol is a big part of many social gatherings over the holidays. Keeping track of how much you are drinking can sometimes be tricky especially if:

·       you don’t normally measure your drinks,
·       you enjoy mixed drinks, or
·       you choose beverages that come in larger size containers. 

When it comes to alcohol content, all drinks are not created equal.

So how much is “one drink”?  KFL&A Public Health now has a supply of magnets like these, depicting standard drink sizes.  Email us here to order.  Another useful tool is the Home Bartending Challenge created by the LCBO.  Try your hand at pouring standard drinks in different sized glasses.  Not as easy as it looks!

Finally, if you or someone you know is concerned about their drinking, or if you simply want to know how your drinking compares to others, Check Your Drinking and find out.

This will be the last blog post before the holidays. Posts will begin again in the New Year.  All the best for a healthy 2013! 

It Starts Here Alcohol Report Now Available

We are pleased to announce that the It Starts Here report is now available for download here.  Hard copies will be available soon for distribution.  Please contact cathy.edwards@kflapublichealth.ca for a copy.

Stay connected and find us on Facebook and Twitter.  

The cost of a drink – alcohol pricing policies and public health

When discussing the issue of alcohol pricing, many people feel that “alcohol costs enough” especially in comparison to other areas in Canada and the U.S. The reality is that policies which impact the price of alcohol are among the most powerful interventions for reducing consumption and related harm.  When prices are lowered, people drink more.  When prices rise, people decrease their consumption.  Not only should alcohol prices be indexed to inflation, setting minimum prices on alcohol based on alcohol content would provide an incentive for consumers to purchase lower alcohol products, particularly consumers such as young adults, who are price sensitive.

 

52% of Kingston respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the price of alcohol should be based on its alcohol content. (Public Opinion Survey of Alcohol Use in Kingston, 2012)

 
While Ontario scores well as far as indexing prices to inflation and mandating minimum retail prices for different categories of alcohol, Saskatchewan has been one of the first jurisdictions to implement minimum pricing linked to the amount of pure alcohol in each product.  Here’s what they found:

• By increasing the price of high alcohol content products, Saskatchewan saw a 12.6% decline in the sale of these products and a corresponding decrease in police calls for public intoxication.
• In addition to a decline in alcohol consumption of 135,000 litres of absolute alcohol, Saskatchewan saw a revenue increase of $9.4 million in the year following the price changes.

A new research series on Alcohol Price Policy in Canada has just been released by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.  The author, Dr. Gerald Thomas concedes that polices such as this are unpopular and are often perceived as “punishing the many for the sins of the few”.  However, he goes on to say that policies such as these (both population level and targeted policies) are needed to effectively reduce all types of alcohol-related harm in Canadian communities.

On December 10^th in Toronto a number of researchers from Ontario, BC and the UK will be speaking at a public seminar in Toronto entitled “Alcohol pricing and public health in Canada: Saving lives while raising government revenues?” This event is sponsored by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Centre for Addictions Research of BC and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

Fun-filled family event dampened by alcohol’s second hand effects

This past weekend Kingston held its annual Santa Claus Parade where 25,000 people from our community turned out to welcome in the holiday season.  Unfortunately, rather than hearing about the great turnout, and a community coming together, we have mostly heard about the 24 year old intoxicated man who was telling the crowds that there is no Santa.   This is a perfect example of alcohol’s second hand effects or “the impacts of alcohol to those other than the person doing the drinking”[1].   While we can’t be sure that this man only did this because he was intoxicated, alcohol likely at least contributed to the situation. 

Some are dismayed that anyone would do that, while others are dismayed at the fact that someone could be arrested for simply speaking freely to a crowd.  However, as the Kingston Police clarified in an interview with The National Post, “he was charged with two criminal counts — causing a disturbance by being drunk, which is a more minor criminal charge, and then we charged him with a breach of probation since he was on probation at the time. He was also charged with public intoxication.”[2]

Incidents such as these involving alcohol, contribute to a decrease in community well being.  What other second hand effects of alcohol have you noticed in our community?  Join the conversation on our Facebook page.  Let’s work together to ensure alcohol is only a part of our good times.

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[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02884.x/pdf

[2] http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/20/why-we-arrested-a-man-for-telling-kids-santa-wasnt-real-police-on-the-kingston-grinch/

 

 

The Business of Alcohol

Kingstonians are working hard to build a vibrant and sustainable community, with economic growth, quality of life, and culture at its core.  Conflict between these community goals can sometimes exist and work against the goal of sustainability.  This type of conflict can be seen in the sale and use of alcohol.  Alcohol sales contribute to the economy through local jobs and tourism, and through provincial government revenue.  They can also contribute to a city’s cultural environment through arts and entertainment.   All of these things together can have a positive effect on our community.  However, the fact remains that alcohol is a drug, and therefore not an ordinary commodity.  The sale and use of alcohol can also have a corresponding negative impact on the local community by reducing quality of life and safety, and increasing costs, e.g. public services.  There is a need to acknowledge this conflict and to balance the benefits and costs of alcohol in society. 

According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, the costs attributable to alcohol in Canada total close to $15 billion for health care, enforcement and lost productivity.  In Ontario alone costs total $5.3 billion. Despite the revenue generated by alcohol sales in Ontario, alcohol-related costs including enforcement and health care are significant.   In a comparison of direct alcohol-related revenue and costs in Ontario in 2002-2003, the deficit totaled more than $456 million.  In addition to enforcement costs, communities such as Kingston are burdened with other municipally funded services including fire, ambulance, and public works. 

An economically strong and vibrant city is built upon a sense of community and a shared value for quality of life and wellbeing.   To achieve this goal we must accurately weigh the benefits and costs of our collective actions.  As one researcher in B.C. acknowledged, there is a need to maintain a balance between consumer demand and economic development on the one hand, and addressing public health and safety issues on the other. In times of increasing health care costs, these facts should not be ignored.  Carefully weighing the costs and benefits of a substance known to have both positive and negative impacts can be a cost effective way of reducing demands, often the most expensive demands, on our health care system.