Take page from anti-smoking crusade, alcohol forum urges.
Health officials met in North York this week at the seventh annual Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity forum hosted by OPHA and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).
Photo/STOCK IMAGE
Health officials who met in North York this week want to highlight the boos in booze.
"Alcohol is a major contributor to chronic disease, social problems and trauma in Ontario," Nancy Landgon, chair of the Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA) alcohol working group, told a forum Tuesday, March 2 at North York Memorial Hall beside the North York Civic Centre.
Landgon was one of several speakers to address the seventh annual Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity forum hosted by OPHA and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).
Drunk driving and fetal alcohol syndrome aside, the general public looks on alcohol as a fun social lubricant with few negative side effects, if you don't count the occasional hangover.
But officials at the conference said they want to start taking a page from the anti-smoking crusade.
By now, just about everybody knows the health dangers and social stigmas associated with lighting up a cigarette. But it wasn't so long ago that smoking was publicly promoted as the domain of sexy women and rugged men.
However, in the last generation or so, smoking has gone from cool to lame as people learned about its negative side effects, ranging from lung cancer and emphysema to bad breath and the high cost of buying cigarettes.
Like tobacco advertising of years ago, alcohol is now promoted, especially for young people, as a way to have fun, relax and become more appealing to others.
According to Dr. Maristela Monteiro, the senior advisor for alcohol and substance abuse at the Pan American Health Organization, alcohol is a leading cause of premature deaths, through both injury and illness, in the Americas including Canada and the U.S.
Broken down by global region, Europeans drink the most, Monteiro said. But the consumption of alcohol in the Americas is 50 per cent higher than the international average, she added.
According to Langdon, Canada and Ontario have made some headway in introducing policies that address the negative impacts of alcohol consumption such as bringing in tougher drunk driving laws and introducing graduated drivers licensing with a zero tolerance for drinking.
"There is a lot to be happy about, but at the same time, there is a lot of work to be done," she said.
Landgon and Norman Giesbrecht, a senior scientist with CAMH, outlined several challenges related to responsible alcohol consumption such as the unbalanced marketing of liquor promoting its benefits over its risks, international trade agreements that fail to address public health concerns, the threat of privatizing the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), and the increase of high-risk drinking since 1996.
Dr. Thomas Babor, a professor and chair in the department of community medicine and health care with the University of Connecticut's school of medicine, said the alcohol industry goes to great lengths to market its products, especially to young people.
Evidence suggests the best way to counter those messages may not be through public education campaigns. In fact, public service announcements can actually arouse young people's interest in booze, Babor said.
Instead, he said there are more effective methods of mitigating the negative effects of drinking including setting minimum prices, having a government monopoly control the sale of alcohol, reducing the percentage of alcohol in products, conducting random breathalyzer tests, raising the minimum age required to purchase alcohol, having high government taxes on booze, bringing in graduated drivers' licences with strict alcohol policies, and lowering legal blood alcohol limits for drivers.