Australian risky drinking

Although the recent report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Statistics on Drug Use in Australia in 2002, stated that alcohol use in Australia is declining, it has been shown that, on the contrary, Australian drinkers are continuing to put themselves at risk of harm by going beyond the safe limits set out in the new Australian Alcohol Guidelines. Work done by researchers from the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University in Perth and Turning Point Drug and Alcohol Centre in Melbourne found that 63.1 per cent of alcohol consumed was on occasions when safe limits were exceeded, thus putting the drinker at risk of injury, acute illness, or both. In the case of young drinkers aged 14 to 24 years, this figure leaped to 80.9 per cent. The total volume of alcohol consumed in Australia has remained the same for ten years whilst heavy sessional drinking by young people has gone up.

The research has, for the first time, attempted to measure the contribution of different alcoholic beverages to high risk drinking. It found that for the same age range of young people, the greatest proportion involved the consumption of ordinary strength beer (39.3 per cent).

The second largest contributor to high risk drinking was bottled spirits (34.0 per cent) and the third was pre-mixed spirits (14.1 per cent).

Speaking about the research, which was presented at an international research symposium entitled Preventing substance use, risky use and harm: What is evidence-based policy? held in Fremantle, Professor Tim Stockwell, Director of the National Drug Research Institute, said that young people very infrequently considered low- or mid-strength beer which respectively comprised only 1.6 per cent and 0.8 per cent of the 14 to 24-year-old alcohol market.

"Currently, alcohol taxes provide little incentive for young people to choose lower alcohol drinks", said Professor Stockwell. "A typical low alcohol beer bought from a liquor store is taxed at a higher rate (52 cents per standard drink) than mid-strength (37 cents per standard drink) or regular-strength beer (44 cents per standard drink).

"If we are serious about reducing risky alcohol consumption, the tax on full strength beer should be increased towards that of pre-mixed spirits (61 cents per standard drink) and there should be a cut in the tax on low alcohol beer," he said.

A 2001 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report estimated that 3,271 lives are lost each year was a result of drinking beyond the Australian Alcohol Guidelines. The Guidelines, formulated by the National Health and Medical Research Council and recently launched by the Commonwealth Government, focus on patterns of consumption, suggesting that people should avoid heavy drinking sessions and space their drinking out over no more than five days a week. Men are advised to drink no more than an average of four standard drinks a day and women no more than an average of two standard drinks a day to prevent chronic health problems such as alcoholic liver cirrhosis.

The recommended weekly limits remain at 28 standard drinks for men and 14 for women.

This research comprises the sixth phase of the National Alcohol Indicators Project (NAIP), the first such project to monitor and report on trends in alcohol-related harm in Australia at national and state or territory levels. The study used data from the 2001 National Drug Strategy Household Survey and incorporated a new, more accurate method for estimating alcohol consumption. The present findings are intended to provide a benchmark against which future trends in alcohol consumption may be compared.