NEWS: The Age - 2/05/2006 'On drinking, example works better than ads'

On drinking, example works better than ads
May 2, 2006

It's no good telling adolescents not to drink if adults do just that, writes David Crosbie.

THE Federal Government has announced it is developing a new youth alcohol campaign in conjunction with the alcohol producers group DrinkWise. The Government is matching the DrinkWise contribution of $5 million.

Apparently the $10 million campaign will include television advertisements and activities that aim to change youth attitudes and behaviour in relation to binge drinking of alcohol.

This announcement is, at best, disappointing, especially for those of us working to try to reduce youth alcohol problems. There is little evidence to suggest that mass media campaigns targeting youth have any real impact on alcohol use. There is even less evidence to support the notion that the multinational alcohol companies behind DrinkWise are genuinely committed to reducing youth binge drinking.

This is an interesting approach from the Government: giving taxpayers' money to an organisation set up by alcohol producers so they can tell our kids not to misuse products that the alcohol companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars encouraging us to use.

I wonder if this new government strategy will extend to other areas — car makers getting taxpayers' money to run anti-speeding campaigns, tobacco companies running anti-tobacco campaigns, gun makers running anti-shooting campaigns and so on. There is obviously some real potential to expand the model if it works.

Alcohol producers and retailers are a very important and powerful interest group in Australian politics. They spend millions on professional lobbying against those strategies they know will reduce their income, while offering support to those they know will have little impact on consumption and profitability. Their support for mass media campaigns targeting the young is consistent with this approach.

Governments like to be on television almost as much as alcohol producers like promoting their products, but the reality is that mass media campaigns generally have minimal impact on alcohol or drug-taking behaviour, particularly among young people. In fact, the findings of independent research clearly indicate that some mass media youth campaigns aimed at alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use have had the opposite effect to that intended.

Alcohol causes more problems in our community than all the illicit drugs combined. Addressing alcohol problems in our community is a difficult area for governments. Research clearly tells us that the most effective strategies tend to be the least popular (increasing taxes and prices, restricting sales, enforcing laws on intoxication), while the most popular strategies are usually the least effective (school alcohol education, youth sponsorships, youth mass media campaigns and so on).

Our society often celebrates the very things we tell young people not to do, or to be very careful about, and nowhere is this clearer than in the way we talk about and use alcohol.

We express concern about excessive alcohol consumption, but it would be almost unAustralian not to get drunk after winning a premiership, not to celebrate mateship with a beer, to have a dry Anzac Day or a non-alcoholic New Year's Eve, to propose a soft-drink toast to the bride and groom, or to organise an office party fuelled by mineral water.

The Melbourne Cup, AFL grand final, and the Australian Grand Prix are just a few of the sporting and cultural events now owned by alcohol companies. The important thing about alcohol in our culture is that whether you win or lose, whether it is work or play, there is always a reason to drink alcohol, and maybe even make a big night of it by having a few too many. We mark most of our social occasions as significant by using alcohol. Why wouldn't young people want to do the same?

So what are the messages we give our children about alcohol? Do we honestly think television advertisements pointing out to young people the potential dangers of binge drinking are a good investment? Do we really want or expect our kids not to get drunk or take risks? Didn't we learn to drink by getting drunk and find our boundaries by taking risks? Who are we kidding?

We are kidding ourselves.

Mass media advertising aimed at young people's use of alcohol makes us feel better, reinforces shared values, lets us know the Government cares, and makes us feel a little more relaxed and comfortable about the "do as I say not as I do" message we give our adolescents as they move into adulthood.

Binge drinking by young people is a serious health problem. Adult alcohol misuse is a tragedy for our whole community. Are governments and the alcohol industry less concerned about the vast majority of alcohol-related harm that is caused by adult intoxication?

Why else would we continue to target problem drinking among the young and do nothing to address adult drunken behaviour including alcohol-fuelled violence, sexual assault, and crime?

If we are serious about reducing binge drinking by young people, we need to start by looking at our own drinking, and what steps can be taken to reduce adult binge drinking. As long as drunkenness is tolerated, encouraged, or treated as a badge of mateship and good times in adult society, binge drinking will always be an important part of growing up in Australia.

David Crosbie is chief executive officer of Odyssey House and a member of the Prime Minister's advisory council on drugs and the national expert advisory committee on alcohol.

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Green fairy takes off again
Des Houghton
May 02, 2006

Hideous Absinthe? The favoured tipple of bohemians and crazy geniuses is back on the shelves and selling fast.

A MIND-BENDING drink favoured by poets, artists and literary bohemians in belle epoque France is back – and quickly assuming cult status in Australia.

Absinthe is legal again after a 100-year ban in most parts of Europe.

The swish French restaurant in the Q1 skyscraper at Surfers Paradise calls itself Absynthe in misspelled homage of the notorious green tipple said to induce melancholia and madness.

Kylie Minogue helped revive the drink as "la fee verte", the green fairy, one of its nick-names, in the film Moulin Rogue.

Groovy restaurants and bars from New Farm to Cairns are selling absinthe by the glass, and it is walking out of liquor stores at $100 or more a bottle.

Teachers on the Gold Coast are confiscating it from students.

Jad Adams writes about it in a fascinating new book, Hideous Absinthe, A History of the Devil in a Bottle. published by I.B. Tauris.

Adams reports that Vincent van Gogh slurped it down before his bout of self-surgery to the ear.

Hemingway juggled knives after drinking industrial quantities of the stuff.

Adams tells how absinthe came to symbolise both the high points of art and the depths of degeneration in Europe.

It may even have ignited the revolutionary artistic movements of the nineteenth century led by absinthe drinkers Degas, Manet and Picasso.

Rimbaud, Verlaine, Gauguin and Emile Zola also drank absinthe – which probably explains quite a lot.

After he tried it, Oscar Wilde said he saw a bunch of tulips sprout out of a cafe floor.

Wowsers were agin absinthe because of its reputed ability to break down all sexual inhibitions, turning the most devout Christian women into downright ravers.

The ingredient which gives absinthe its kick is wormwood oil.

In 1905 when a depressed Swiss farmer named Jean Lanfray sucked down too much of it he shot his family and himself.

There was outrage across Europe and many countries banned it.

Exactly 100 years after Lanfray's bender, the Swiss parliament voted to legalise the emerald devil.

Mercifully, today's absinthe contains only minute traces of thujone, the psychoactive chemical in wormwood (Artemesia absinthium), the secret ingredient along with alcohol and anise.

The Swiss again seek to lock up world supplies and are seeking an official Euro appellation, giving them exclusive rights to make absinthe in much the same way the French control champagne.

As with heroin, absinthe has its own rituals which add to its mystique: water is poured over a sugar cube balanced on a slotted spoon which drips into the green liquid, turning it milky and opaque.

This has been called the "louche effect" that, in the mind of pissed poets, symbolised the freeing of the imagination.

Is absinthe hip?

Yes. And will it become another trendy fad to the gullible young? Almost certainly.

I recently saw one bottle with a label saying it was 68 per cent alcohol. That makes it more a weapon than a thirst-quencher.

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Doogan said:

I cant tell what peoples problem with absinthe is, especially in australia. There is no bad effects to drinking it and because the worm wood in it is of such a low amount there is no real effect from it when drinking.

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