Author: EUCAM

Beers with a high alcohol content are prevalent throughout Europe. They are also easily accessible, relatively inexpensive and often packaged in ‘super-sized’ containers (up to bottles of three litres). This research was conducted by EUCAM in 16 European countries.

Authors: Craig S. Ross (Virtual Media Resources), Avalon de Bruijn (Dutch Institute for Alcohol Policy) and David Jernigan (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)

Regulators may attempt to reduce youth exposure to alcohol advertising by restricting times during which alcohol ads may be aired on television or radio. The Netherlands introduced such a policy and found that teenage advertising exposure increased following the time restrictions. This study uses simulation analysis and a comprehensive database of television alcohol advertising to demonstrate that time restrictions are likely to reduce advertising exposure to the youngest viewers while increasing exposure for the high-risk teenage population.

Authors: Seethalakshmi Ramanathan (State University of New York Upstate Medical University), Natarajan Balasubramanian (Syracuse University) and Rajeev Krishnadas (University of Glasgow).

The current economic crisis has received a lot of attention from policy makers. However, the traditional focus of the attention has been on short-term effects, such as housing and unemployment. The long-term influences of such crises, particularly on infants and young children, have generally not been examined. This study investigates the relationship between exposure to macroeconomic crises during infancy and long-term behavioral problems, including substance use and delinquency.

Author: Transform Drug Policy Foundation

The growing costs of the war on drugs – particularly for the worst affected producer and transit countries – have now reached a crisis point that is driving an increasingly high-level and mainstream debate on drug policy and law reform. But while there is a growing consensus that current approaches to drug control have been ineffective or actively counterproductive, there is less agreement on how these shortcomings should be addressed.

Author: Transform Drug Policy Foundation

Despite the lack of evidence that more punitive drug laws significantly deter drug use, criminalisation remains the primary weapon in the war on drugs. But using the criminal justice system to solve a public health problem has proven not only ineffective, but also socially corrosive. It promotes stigmatisation and discrimination, the burden of which is largely carried by already marginalised or vulnerable populations, many of whom the policy is nominally designed to protect.