PRESS RELEASE: Diageo Supports California Legislation to Combat Underage Drinking

19 April 2007

North America

Proposed Law Would Enforce Stricter Penalties on Adults Who Furnish Alcohol To Minors

Diageo, the world's leading spirits, wine and beer company, announced its support of California legislation aimed at combating underage drinking. The bill, AB 1658, increases penalties for adults who provide alcohol to those under the legal drinking age. Following a hearing yesterday, in which Diageo testified, it passed out of the Assembly’s Committee on Governmental Organization.

AB 1658 increases the legal consequences associated with providing alcohol to a minor, moving the punishment from community service to imprisonment. Diageo calls publicly for all alcohol policy organizations, especially The Marin Institute and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, to join them in supporting this important piece of legislation that directly addresses an important social objective. The bill also increases the existing fines these individuals incur.

. . . . READ FULL PRESS RELEASE

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Proposed Legislation on Alcopops

AB 346 - An Act to Restrict Youth Access to Youth-friendly Alcohol Drinks

Legislation introduced by California Assembly Member Jim Beall will reduce underage drinking by limiting access to alcohol products with particular youth appeal. Alcohol-spiked “energy drinks” and pre-packaged “jello-shots”, as well as ‘alcopops’ are defined by the bill has having special youth appeal.

Products identified as having youth appeal will be required to display a label, "Warning: Contains Alcohol" and will be subject to marketing restrictions restricting youth access. Bill Text (html) (pdf)

AB 345 - The Underage Drinking Prevention Act of 2007

Assembly Member Lori Saldana has introduced a bill aimed at reducing harm caused by alcopops. Highlights:

• Allocates the estimated $50 million in tax revenue resulting from the proper taxation of alcopops as distilled spirits to a fund dedicated to the prevention of underage drinking.
  
• Revenue from a new license fee for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of alcopops will also go into the fund.
  
• The fund will be divided among the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (20% for enforcement of underage drinking laws), the State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (30% for market research, a media campaign, and assessment of youth recovery programs), and county health departments (50% for emergency/trauma services, youth recovery and prevention programs). Bill Text (html) (pdf)

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Busch introduces fruit-infused beer

By Jim Salter, AP Business Writer | April 26, 2007

ST. LOUIS --Anheuser-Busch on Thursday rolled out fruit-flavored versions of its Michelob Ultra brand as the nation's largest brewer continues to branch out from its line of traditional beers.

The fruit-infused beers are available only through Labor Day and come in three flavors -- Pomegranate Raspberry, Lime Cactus and Tuscan Orange Grapefruit.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. in recent years has branched out to different brews aimed at attracting drinkers in their 20s -- drinks that include so-called "malternatives" such as the Bacardi Silver line of flavored malt beverages. . . . .

Some critics contend the flavored beverages attract underage drinkers. Earlier this month, National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse chairman Joseph Califano Jr. criticized an Anheuser-Busch product called Spykes, a flavored malt beverage sold in 2-ounce bottles meant to be mixed with beer or other drinks, or consumed as a shot.

Califano is also critical of the fruit-flavored beer.

"Coming on the heels of Spykes, to me it smells of a policy directed at making beer more attractive for underage drinkers," Califano said. "What 25-, 30-year-old guy or even gal drinking beer is going to flavor it? I don't think so."

. . . . . READ FULL ARTICLE

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Town is first to spike sales of new drink

By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | April 26, 2007

It comes in flavors that sound like lip gloss, in bottles that look like nail polish, and it tastes a bit like candy. And now the new mini-bottle malt beverage Spykes -- controversial on grounds it is marketed to teens -- is banned in West Bridgewater.

The community may be the first in the nation to prohibit sales of the sweet alcoholic drink. Anheuser-Busch, the manufacturer of Spykes, said this week it knows of no other community that has imposed a ban.

West Bridgewater selectmen voted this month to ban Spykes in bars, restaurants, and liquor stores. They are also urging area towns to enact similar bans, and they have contacted the state attorney general's office in hopes of banning the drink statewide.

. . . . .READ FULL ARTICLE

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Between- and Within-Family Association Test of the Dopamine Receptor D2 TaqIA Polymorphism and Alcohol Abuse and Dependence in a General Population Sample of Adults

Volume 68, 2007 > Issue 3: May 2007

Dopaminergic dysfunction has been hypothesized to play an important role in the etiology of alcohol-use disorders.

A restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) in the 3 untranslated region (3UTR) of the DRD2 gene affects gene expression and has been implicated as a risk factor for alcohol dependence.

This polymorphism (TaqIA) has been reported as positively associated with alcohol-use disorders in case-control samples, but these results have not been replicated in family-based association studies.

This study supports other family-based association tests that have reported no association between the DRD2 TaqIA polymorphism and alcohol abuse and dependence.

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REPRINT REQUEST E-MAIL: brett.haberstick@colorado.edu
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Alcohol-Caused Mortality in Australia and Canada:
Scenario Analyses Using Different Assumptions About Cardiac Benefit
Volume 68, 2007 > Issue 3: May 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine how definitions of abstainers in prospective studies of alcohol and mortality influence estimates of the extent of coronary heart disease (CHD) protection due to low-risk alcohol consumption.

Meta-analyses were conducted on 35 prospective studies categorized according to the presence of up to two postulated errors for men and women regarding the classification of abstainers.

Significant CHD protection was found for both men (odds ratio [OR] .79) and women (OR .89) only in studies committing both errors; it was found for women only in studies with occasional drinker error (OR .75) and for neither gender in the few available error-free studies.

Estimates of net alcohol-caused deaths in 2002 varied accordingly, from -1,405 to 2,479 for Australia and from 4,321 to 7,319 for Canada.

There is a need for CHD mortality studies that use lifelong abstinence as the reference point for estimating CHD protection. There may be gender differences in CHD protection. Separate estimates for the effects of low- and elevated-risk alcohol consumption on mortality should be made and communicated.

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Neurology May Better Addiction Therapy

Team examines role of brain’s self-control and pleasure centers in drug abuse

Published On Thursday, April 26, 2007 4:05 AM

Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, last night outlined a series of scientific findings which may revolutionize treatment for drug addiction.

In a lecture entitled “Drug Addiction: the Neurobiology of Disrupted Free Will” at Harvard Medical School, she emphasized the genetic component of a person’s sensitivity to drugs, as well as the link between drug use and memory.

Volkow’s team at the Brookhaven National Laboratory has made scientific breakthroughs indicating that traditional treatment for drug addiction may not be the only way—or even the best way—to reduce drug abusers’ cravings.

Her findings reveal the role in addiction played by the section of the brain responsible for self control, as well as the part associated with pleasure.

. . . . READ FULL ARTICLE

Contributor: Don Philips

Opioid Receptor Gene (OPRM1, OPRK1, and OPRD1) Variants and Response to Naltrexone Treatment for Alcohol Dependence: Results From the VA Cooperative Study

Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 31 (4), 555–563.


Pharmacotherapy of alcohol dependence (AD) is at an early stage of development; currently available medications have limited efficacy. It would be clinically valuable to identify, before initiation of a course of treatment, those patients who, based on genetic markers, are most likely to respond to a specific pharmacotherapy.

A previous report suggested that a functional variant at the genetic locus encoding the μ opioid receptor (Asn40Asp) is such a marker, in short-term (3-month) treatment with the opioid-blocking drug naltrexone (NTX).

Although NTX had no significant effect on relapse to heavy drinking in the overall sample in CSP 425, it significantly reduced relapse in the subgroup that provided DNA for analysis (i.e., the present study sample). There were no significant interactions between any individual single nucleotide polymorphisms studied and NTX treatment response.

These results do not support association of the OPRM1 Asn40Asp polymorphism with NTX treatment response for AD.

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REPRINT REQUEST E-MAIL: joel.gelernter@yale.edu

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CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION
FLAVORED MALT BEVERAGES


Per your request to receive electronic information of the California
State Board of Equalization - Flavored Malt Beverages - Rule Making
Process:

The Flavored Malt Beverage Second Meeting of Interested Parties that was
scheduled to be held on May 17, 2007 in Sacramento, has been moved to
June 6, 2007. We want to let Interested Parties know that they will
have the same amount of time to submit public comment following the
meeting, as the "Last Day for Interested Parties to Respond" was moved
back to June 21, 2007. The date this matter will be discussed by the
Board's Business Taxes Committee was not changed and remains August 14,
2007.
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Enforce warning labels on alcohol: NDP

CBC News

Six years after Parliament passed a motion requiring labels on alcohol warning of the dangers of drinking while pregnant, Judy Wasylycia-Leis says she is frustrated by government inaction.

"Parliament passed my motion by an overwhelming 217-11 vote," the New Democrat member of Parliament from Winnipeg and former health critic said on Monday.

"Yet I am still regularly presenting petitions in the House from Canadians pleading for government action. This defies the will of Parliament and the wishes of Canadians — certainly the children and families who continue to be devastated by fetal alcohol spectrum disorder."

. . . .READ FULL ARTICLE

Contributor: Peggy Seo Oba

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Please don't do what I did, pleads mother who drank

April 22, 2007

ELIZABETH Russell lives with the guilt that she ruined her sons' lives after drinking during her pregnancies. But now she is trying to prevent other women from unknowingly doing the same.

Ms Russell is a recovering alcoholic who in 2001 found that her addiction had physically harmed her two sons.

Her elder son, 26, was diagnosed with "alcohol-exposed neurodevelopmental disorder" and the younger son, 22, has full foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).

. . . . .READ FULL ARTICLE

Contributor: Peggy Seo Oba

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23 April 2007


Feature Article

• More trouble with advertising complaints

• Rugby sponsorship by bundy rum

A round up of alcohol news

• Women: Two drinks enough
• Time to reassess the role of alcohol in our lives
• Sporting beer ad ban plan
• Beware the perils bomb-making, experts warn
• Rugby code looking to be Good Sports when it comes to drinking
• Teen booze ban in pipeline
• MP seeks tougher drink law for teens at parties
• More alcohol, more often is hardly the solution to a growing problem

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News Release: Women’s Early Drinking Problems More Likely to Escape Diagnosis

By M. C. Tapera, Contributing Writer
Health Behavior News Service

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Men are more likely than women to experience many of the problems commonly associated with nondependent drinking, according to a new study. But the authors suggest women are prone to different alcohol-related problems that are less likely to be diagnosed.

Penny Nichol, co-author and quantitative psychologist, said the current study is distinguished by how specifically it measures alcohol problems: “We’re not comparing just any man and any woman; we’re comparing men and women with similar levels of problems.”

Balancing such comparisons allowed the University of Minnesota researchers to explore an underlying question: Are the criteria for alcohol abuse and dependence as accurate for women as for men? Nichols said it’s possible that studies “aren’t looking at the correct symptoms” for women.

. . . . .READ FULL NEWS RELEASE
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News Release:

Community action reduces violence in high-crime neighborhoods, study finds

Mobilized residents work with police, shopkeepers, bar owners to prevent alcohol-related problems in lower-income communities

When residents are actively involved in their neighborhoods, they can clean up the crime and violence. That’s according to a new study that found a significant decrease in assaults, car crashes and other alcohol-related crime with community participation. Calls to police and emergency medical services also dropped with this intervention program that addresses alcohol sales and service.

Researchers at the PIRE Prevention Research Center implemented and tested the program called the Sacramento Neighborhood Alcohol Prevention Project or SNAPP in an effort to reduce access to alcohol and the problems related in two low-income, predominantly ethnic minority neighborhoods. The intervention focused on individuals between the ages 15 and 29, an age group with high rates of alcohol-involved problems. Sacramento-based La Familia Counseling Center Inc. assisted in the project.
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Many Infants Prenatally Exposed to High Levels of Alcohol Show One Particular Anomaly of the Corpus Callosum
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 31 (5), 868–879.


Effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on the brain are seen at every age. The earlier they can be quantified, the better the prognosis for the affected child.

Here we show measurable alcohol effects at birth on a structure currently used for nosology only much later in life.

An average of the images for the unexposed subjects has the geometry of textbook images of normal babies; but the average for the subgroup of high-angle subjects may serve as a template or guide to this regional damage parallel to the familiar photographic exemplars that help to assess facial signs.

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REPRINT REQUEST E-MAIL: lb@stat.washington.edu

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Antisocial Behavioral Syndromes and DSM-IV Alcohol Use Disorders: Results From the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 31 (5), 814–828.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), syndromal adult antisocial behavior (AABS) without conduct disorder (CD) before age 15, and CD without progression to ASPD ("CD only") are highly prevalent among adults with alcohol use disorders (AUDs).

This study examines prevalences and correlates of antisocial syndromes among adults with lifetime Diagnostic and Statistical Manual—Version IV (DSM-IV) AUDs, and describes associations of these syndromes with clinical characteristics of AUDs, in the general U.S. population.

Antisocial syndromes were significantly associated with phenomenology of AUDs, particularly ASPD with the most severe clinical presentations. Associations with AABS were similar to but more modest than those with ASPD; those with "CD only" were weaker and less consistent.

Patterns of associations between antisocial syndromes and clinical characteristics of AUDs were generally similar between men and women.

Antisocial syndromes, particularly ASPD, appear to identify a more pernicious clinical profile of AUDs among adults in the general U.S. population.

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REPRINT REQUEST E-MAIL: goldster@mail.nih.gov

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Joint Impacts of Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Beer Taxes on US Youth Traffic Fatalities, 1975 to 2001
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 31 (5), 804–813.


There is a considerable body of prior research indicating that a number of public policies that limit alcohol availability affect youth traffic fatalities. These limitations can be economic (e.g., beverage taxation), physical (e.g., numbers or operating hours of alcohol outlets), or demographic (e.g., minimum legal drinking age).

This study tested one prediction of this model, namely that the impact from changing one availability-related cost depends on the level of other components of full cost.

The analyses showed that raising either MLDA or beer taxes in isolation led to fewer youth traffic fatalities. As expected, a given change in MLDA causes a larger proportional change in fatalities when beer taxes are low than when they are high.

These findings suggest that a community's expected benefit from a proposed limitation on alcohol availability depends on its current regulatory environment. Specifically, communities with relatively strong existing policies might expect smaller impacts than suggested by prior research, while places with weak current regulations might expect larger benefits from the same policy initiative.

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News Release: Higher beer taxes, 21 drinking age reduces traffic deaths of young people, study finds Communities with weak existing alcohol-control policies have most to gain

BERKELEY – Communities with few alcohol regulations could consider raising taxes on beer as a way to reduce drunken driving fatalities among young people. Alcohol-control policies such as the minimum legal drinking age and raising beer taxes have helped prevent youth access to alcohol and the problems of underage drinking. However, a recent study found that communities with limited alcohol regulation could expect the greatest benefits from establishing new alcohol-control policies. The effectiveness of any particular policy depends on what other policies are also in place.

“Our findings suggest that communities that have been historically reluctant to regulate alcohol availability currently have the most to gain from implementing any given alcohol policy initiative,” said William R. Ponicki, M.A., lead author of the study and a researcher at PIRE’s Prevention Research Center in Berkeley. “The study confirms earlier findings regarding the importance of alcohol policy in preventing alcohol-related problems such as traffic crashes. But it also shows that a community should look at the whole picture.”

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PRESS RELEASE:
Morphine makes lasting -- and surprising -- change in the brain

Heterogeneous Effects of Alcohol on Dopamine Release in the Striatum: A PET Study
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (OnlineEarly Articles).
11 April 2007

A dopaminergic response to alcohol in humans has not been demonstrated consistently with positron emission tomography (PET). We hypothesized that the effect of alcohol on striatal dopamine (DA) release may be anatomically heterogeneous between subjects.

Our approach was to identify voxels that exhibited alcohol-induced DA responses within the striatum, and to determine the relationships between DA responses and alcohol-related behavior.

The heterogeneity of dopaminergic responses to alcohol across subjects may be a reason for the lack of reports demonstrating DA involvement in alcohol-related behaviors.

By allowing for different spatial patterns of DA release within each subject's striata, we showed correlations between alcohol-induced DA release in the striata and behavioral outcomes related to alcohol.

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REQUEST REPRINT E-MAIL: kkyoder@iupui.edu
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Concurrent and simultaneous drug and alcohol use: Results of the 2000 National Alcohol Survey

Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Article in Press, Corrected Proof
online 18 pril 2007


This study estimates the prevalence, assesses predictors and evaluates factors associated with concurrent and simultaneous use of drugs and alcohol in the United States population.

Being younger, having less than a high school education, not having a regular partner and having heavier drinking patterns were associated with using alcohol and marijuana simultaneously. Simultaneous use of marijuana and alcohol as well as other drugs and alcohol were significantly related to social consequences, alcohol dependence, and depression.

These results mirror clinical populations in which increasingly younger clients report use of alcohol and drugs and need treatment for both.

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REQUEST REPRINT E-MAIL: lmidanik@berkeley.edu
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The Women's Recovery Group Study: A Stage I trial of women-focused group therapy for substance use disorders versus mixed-gender group drug counseling

Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Article in Press, Corrected Proof
online 18 April 2007


The aim of this Stage I Behavioral Development Trial was to develop a manual-based 12-session Women's Recovery Group (WRG) and to pilot test this new treatment in a randomized controlled trial against a mixed-gender Group Drug Counseling (GDC), an effective manual-based treatment for substance use disorders.

In this study, the newly developed 12-session women-focused WRG was feasible with high satisfaction among participants.

It was equally effective as mixed-gender GDC in reducing substance use during the 12-week in-treatment phase, but demonstrated significantly greater improvement in reductions in drug and alcohol use over the post-treatment follow-up phase compared with GDC.

A women-focused single-gender group treatment may enhance longer-term clinical outcomes among women with substance use disorders.

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REPRINT REQUEST E-MAIL: shelly_greenfield@hms.harvard.edu
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