Drug and alcohol review
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Drug and alcohol review · May 2012
Pills and pints: risky drinking and alcohol-related harms among regular ecstasy users in Australia.
A significant proportion of young Australians engage in risky alcohol consumption, and an increasing minority are regular ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) users. Risky alcohol use, alone or in combination with ecstasy, is associated with a range of acute and chronic health risks. The aim of this study was to document the incidence and some health-related correlates of alcohol use, and concurrent alcohol and ecstasy use, among a large, national sample of regular ecstasy users (REU) in Australia. ⋯ A large and increasing proportion of REU in Australia engage in high-risk patterns of alcohol consumption, including in combination with ecstasy. High-risk alcohol consumption among this group is associated with adverse health-related outcomes. Prevention and harm reduction interventions for REU should incorporate messages about the risks associated with alcohol use. There is an ongoing need for youth-specific, coordinated alcohol and other drug and mental health services.
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Drug and alcohol review · Mar 2012
Responses to risk: public submissions on Australian alcohol guidelines for low-risk drinking.
In 2007 the National Health and Medical Research Council issued the draft of the revised Australian alcohol guidelines. The document presented guidelines explicitly in terms of risk. This paper seeks to explore the public response to this document by analysing the submissions received during the 60 day period for public feedback. ⋯ The diversity of views expressed seems to have had little effect in the revision of the guidelines. Disseminating the low-risk drinking guidelines message poses many challenges.
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Drug and alcohol review · Mar 2012
ReviewGuidelines for pregnancy: what's an acceptable risk, and how is the evidence (finally) shaping up?
The lack of consensus about whether low to moderate levels of prenatal alcohol exposure are a risk factor for fetal development has generated considerable debate about what advice policies and guidelines should provide. ⋯ The policy advice that 'the safest choice for pregnant women is to abstain from alcohol during pregnancy' should be maintained. However, the abstinence message needs to be presented in a balanced and rational manner to prevent unintended negative consequences.
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Drug and alcohol review · Mar 2012
ReviewDifferent guidelines for different countries? On the scientific basis of low-risk drinking guidelines and their implications.
The scientific evidence for low-risk drinking guidelines was examined in a narrative review focusing on three points: definition of exposure, the best way to select outcomes and risk relations and how to determine thresholds. With respect to exposure, at least two dimensions should be incorporated: average volume of alcohol consumption and patterns of irregular heavy drinking occasions. ⋯ Finally, our plea is for establishing a general threshold for acceptable risk on a societal level rather than ad hoc specific committees setting norms for specific risks. Acceptable thresholds will be different if the risk is to oneself or to others.
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Drug and alcohol review · Mar 2012
An empirical approach to evaluating the validity of alternative low-risk drinking guidelines.
This paper proposes an approach for evaluating the validity of alternative low-risk drinking guidelines. ⋯ This paper supported gender-specific daily limits and suggested that optimal guidelines might take daily limits from analyses of concurrent harms and weekly limits from analyses of prospective harms. This paper illustrates a mechanism for validating the ability of low-risk drinking guidelines to accurately predict a range of alcohol-related harms, whereby countries could use their own data on consumption and its association with harm to evaluate their low-risk drinking guidelines