NEWS: News.com.au - 21/02/08 'Rudd Government to tackle binge drinking'

[chugs]

1. Teach harm minimisation classes at school.

I was binge drinking at the age of 14 and nearly killed myself from alcohol, several times.

I was never taught what an over-dose was, what the signs were and what to do if it happened to me. Alcohol was easy to gain access to and we just didn't go for the sugary drinks. In fact we moved away from those, quickly, as I'm sure many here can attest, passion pop is guaranteed to create vomit and sickening hangovers.

No teenage binge drinkers are far more habitual in their drug of choice. I remember learning that skull a tall glass filled with straight whisky was guaranteed to make the morning period a gas.

MacDonald's cups (large) are perfect for drinking goon. Skull away and bam you've just drunken 1.3litres of cheap ass wine (coz if you can't steal it fuck it if your going to pay top dollar to get fucked).

I recall in my later years my father (who was an alcoholic) explaining drinking a bottle of whisky within an hour or two would kill the average human (well himself).

Well thanks for telling me after I blacked out more times then I can remember (ha), waking up so many times blood all over me. The non-stop vomiting.

But the thing was when i realised that alcohol killed so many "ordinary" people. Binge drinking on the weekend and you don't expect to die, but that happens to people every weekend in this country.

But I don't think alcohol is the problem, just the same as with LSD, MDMA and family. Hell you'll find a significant quantity of problem drinkers, once they move off of the grog, simply move onto another denial producing addiction.

This leads to me my next point

2. restrict access, change the way we approach altering our consciousness. Admit this innate and all too human of needs and start dealing with it in a straight forward adult way.

I see the need for choice but not when it doesn't have competition. I want people to choice their drug addictions, spread them thin. Poly drug use.

Why because such a change in our regulations can only occur once we've completed point 1.

We need to stop treating people like children, refusing to talk about the hard issue. Why we drink our demons away and how hypocritical we deny (ever so failing) an opportunity to smoke theirs away.

Look we'll never rid this world of pain and anguish. People are always going to be fucked up and in turn fuck other people up, but at least we should be there for them.

Shits me to tears when I see these political football kick offs. Don't just sweep it under the bed thinking your big media campaign will hide the monster of junk that lurks under there.

Anyway probably not the thread.

 

[Flinch]

Bah, yet another example of the government rallying the people into a frenzy over a topic, gaining all there support on the topic, and then making a "Massive change" to "Stop" the bad things from happening, even though they know dam well it wont make a difference.

If someone, no matter the age, wants to get drunk, they will. End of story.

If anything, all i can see this doing is increasing the market for pills, speed and possibly meth to 18 - 21 yr old clubbers.

 

[hoptis]

Giving your teens alcohol is illegal
By Christopher Bantick
April 14, 2008 09:00am
Article from: The Courier-Mail

THERE'S a scene in John Wayne's True Grit in which Little Maddie, a teen who has hired a lawman to find her father's killer, is offered whiskey.

Little Maddie says: "Why would I put a robber in my mouth to steal my brains?" It is advice parents should heed.

There is no excuse for parents to give their teenage children alcohol. Let's be frank here. The legal drinking age is 18 so to offer alcohol to adolescents and children below this age is breaking the law. Being at home makes no difference.

To suggest, as some parents do, that giving alcohol early to teenagers "bloods" them and teaches them how to handle grog, is palpably irresponsible.

It is simply indefensible and an abrogation of good parenting. I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Last week, the New South Wales Government announced plans to make parents responsible for drunken teenagers as figures reveal four children a day, some as young as 10, are being admitted to hospital for alcohol abuse.

There is a direct and causal link between early alcohol consumption and binge drinking. Just about any parent, if they were to be accused of being instrumental in encouraging binge drinking, is likely to throw up their hands and plead innocence. Wrong. Research into binge drinking is showing that its initiation is traceable to parents.

What is clear is that parents are the biggest influence on their children's drinking but most fail to admit it. According to DrinkWise Australia, while 85 per cent of parents of 14 to 17-year olds agree that it is the parents' role to show their children how to consume alcohol, only 26 per cent believe that their own drinking has influenced their children to drink.

Even so, 89 per cent of children aged 10 to 17, the DrinkWise research found, nominated their parents as being the most influential in their awareness of drinking. Next most influential were peers (63 per cent), siblings (38 per cent) and grandparents (27 per cent).

This unambiguously shows two things. Parents' behaviour has an impact on children's alcohol intake and secondly, parents act irresponsibly by encouraging potentially dangerous modelling behaviour.

So much for those well-meaning "cool" parents who supplied their teenage children with slabs of alcohol for Schoolies, and the promise of a thumping "good time". Let's be clear about this. Giving children the opportunity to get merry, shickered or just plain dead drunk, is no rite-of-passage journey.

I am a parent of a 15-year-old teenage boy. Alcohol is a topic of conversation in our home. A few of his mates drink regularly and my son often asks us what it tastes like? We have a clear rule. No alcohol at home or elsewhere until he's 18. He has accepted this. The reason is he sees us drink with meals – not every day and often with friends – and the association is obvious: alcohol, specifically wine, can complement food. It's a cultural thing. Getting blotto is ugly and he has seen this in city streets often enough.

But it is the spike in binge drinking that has urged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Health Minister Nicola Roxon to act. Perhaps they need to take notice of what Queensland has in place.

Last November, Premier Anna Bligh in announcing new laws on parents giving alcohol to their children, had this to say: "We are not about penalising parents who let their 16 or 17-year-olds have a mouthful of champagne at grandma's 90th birthday. This is about getting tough on those people who give 16 and 17-year-olds three or four slabs of beer to take to Stradbroke Island or the Gold Coast."

Furthermore, Roxon seemed to be on the money when she said earlier this month:

"While young people must take greater responsibility for their behaviour, binge drinking is a community-wide problem that demands a community-wide response."

The reality is that drinking by teenagers is out of control and parents who encourage alcohol consumption are accountable. Australian Drug Foundation research shows that 30 per cent of Australian children aged between 14 and 17 drink alcohol weekly and, wait for it, 70 per cent get it from friends or relatives. Moreover, 63 per cent of this group had their first drink as a 14-year-old.

Given that research confirms parents have a significantly influential role on teenage drinking, it is a timely move that the alcohol industry is set to target parents in a $5 million campaign to curb teenage drinking. It is recognition of the critical role parents play. The scaled-up approach will be undertaken by DrinkWise, the industry-funded body. The focus will be an advertising campaign and website warning parents to think about how alcohol use affects their children.

Christopher Bantick is a writer and social commentator.

News.com.au

 

[peaked]

A few of his mates drink regularly and my son often asks us what it tastes like? We have a clear rule. No alcohol at home or elsewhere until he's 18. He has accepted this

I highly doubt his 15 yr old son has never tried alcohol. He just wouldn't be aware that it happened. I knew a number of people (when I was a teen) who's parents were very strict on alcohol, and wouldn't allow them to consume it. Their parents would foolishly assume as a result that their teenagers never drank. Trouble is, those parents are rarely at any of the parties where alcohol is abundant. I often noted (years ago when I was also underage) that those who had to drink "in secret" from family members often seemed to push the limits too far, whereas the parents that allowed them to have a few drinks often had a far greater sense of moderation and their limits.

In the end, I think it's not so much about teenagers being given alcohol as it is about parents setting an example of how to use it. Christopher Bantick likes to paint the picture of "outrageous" parents loading their children up with alcohol, but is that really the reality of it? I highly doubt many parents would buy a bottle of vodka and give it to their child and say "go drink till you pass out". The only times large amounts of alcohol would be supplied IMO would be if many people (more than just their child) was to drink it. And by setting an example of good moderation, even if there is a lot of alcohol around, a teen might be more responsible around it.

I think probably the worst thing is those that never drink, and expect their children to do the same. Those kids end up having no idea about alcohol, how to use it and in what amounts to cause what effects. Parents that drink to excess themselves probably aren't setting a very good example either, but the teens do get to see first hand some of the more unpleasant effects of alcohol, which may actually be a deterrent for themselves.

 

[hoptis]

Taxes double on ready-to-drink alcohol
By Maria Hawthorne and Stephanie Gardine
April 27, 2008 05:12pm

A WAR of words has erupted after Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon accused the former Howard government of fuelling teenage binge drinking.

Ms Roxon said a decision in 2000 to cut excise on pre-mixed alcoholic drinks – so-called alcopops – helped fuel the surge in excessive drinking by young people, particularly girls.

A furious Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson branded the claim an “outrageous slur”.

Ms Roxon said the Rudd Government's decision to lift the excise by 70 per cent would help tackle binge drinking by making the sugary, innocuous tasting drinks between 30 cents and $1.30 a bottle more expensive.

The tax increase will deliver about $2 billion a year to the Government – a “big chunk” of which will go to preventative health schemes, Ms Roxon said.

She slammed the former government for cutting the excise, making pre-mixed drinks cheaper than bottled spirits.

“I think the previous government is partly responsible. I think they made a mistake. We're going to turn that around,” Ms Roxon told Channel 9.

“We can track the change in the way that young women have been drinking these products from the time that the Howard government changed the excise in 2000.

“We've seen patterns where it's gone from about 14 per cent of young girls drinking these products up to about 60 per cent.

“So, this is an explosion that we think needs to be tackled ... We have a problem that must be turned around and this is the place where we're starting.”

Dr Nelson said the Coalition supported the rise in the excise, but denied that the former government was to blame for binge drinking.

“It is an outrageous slur on the previous government for anybody to suggest that by not further increasing the excise or tax on these alcoholic drinks, that in some way has led to their abuse,” Dr Nelson said in Sydney.

“The Government, in fact, over the last 10 years responsibly put excise and taxes into alcoholic drinks to make sure that they did not, under any circumstances, reduce in price which the GST would have otherwise done.”

Under the changes, which came into effect at midnight, excise on alcopops will rise from $39 a litre of pure alcohol to $67, putting them on an equal footing with bottled spirits.

“We've got research that shows that young people are price sensitive and if that means that this is a deterrent then that will be a really successful measure on our part,” Ms Roxon said.

The Public Health Association (PHA) agreed, saying alcopops were the first drink for as many as 60 per cent of girls.

“We know that price is the most effective single measure in reducing alcohol consumption, especially by young people,” PHA president Mike Daube said.

“This increase will make a real dent in one of our biggest current social problems.”

Figures released today show that girls aged 12 to 15 are more than three times as likely as boys of the same age to drink alcohol at least once a week.

News.com.au

 

[JakesCode]

So I walked into the bottleshop in search of a 6 pack of premixed drinks.. I ended up walking out with 2 bottles of spirits.. Not because I wanted to get smashed, but because I couldn't bring myself to pay their extreme prices.

So are the youth going to spend more on premixes? are they going to buy cheaper nastier products? or will a few throw in for a bottle of hard booze. If they're anything like I was at that age I think their drinks may contain a tad more than a standard drink! and probably get stronger as the night progresses.. Thoughts?