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Posts Tagged ‘alcohol’

Source: ANI

Date: September 30, 2010

A new study has found that due to various factors, including social, economic and ethnic influences and pressures, more people are drinking than 20 years ago. A UT Southwestern Medical Center analysis of national alcohol consumption patterns gathered the data from more than 85,000 respondents.

The findings, Dr. Raul Caetano said, suggest that continuous monitoring of alcohol consumption levels is needed to understand better the factors that affect consumption. “Changes in the population due to aging, the influx of immigrant groups, and a decline in mean income level because of economic recessions can all impact trends in drinking and problems associated with drinking,” he said.

While more Caucasians, Hispanics and African-Americans reported drinking between 1992 and 2002, only Caucasian women consumed more drinks per person. The number of drinks that African-Americans and Hispanics consumed leveled out over the 10-year time period. Dr. Caetano said the team also identified several sociodemographic predictors for whether someone was more likely to drink to intoxication. They found that males younger than 60 who did not have a college degree were likely to consume more drinks per month. Being unemployed or unmarried also were identified as risk factors for males getting intoxicated more than once a month, he said.

For the study, the researchers culled data from the 1991-92 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey and the 2001-02 National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism conducted both surveys, in which trained interviewers spoke with individuals 18 or older in the respondents’ homes. The interviewers used a standardized questionnaire, so both surveys used the same overall methodology. Each study included about 43,000 participants.

The study has been published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. (ANI)

Click here to learn about the effects of alcohol consumption.

Source: Fox News

By: Angela Logomasini

Date: September 29, 2010

The quest by wine and beer wholesalers to maintain their “middleman” role within the liquor industry is simply bad news. A bill making its way through the House (H.R. 5034) sponsored by Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) supports wholesalers’ promises to limit consumer choice and disadvantage retailers, wineries, breweries, distilleries, and importers.

The topic is the subject of hearings before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee today. Not surprisingly, wholesalers hope this legislation will protect the “three-tier system” for distribution of alcohol, which nearly all states impose. The system requires that alcohol producers (wineries, distillers, brewers, and importers) sell only to wholesalers, who in turn market the products to retailers. It thereby bans any mutually beneficial sales between retailers (wine shops, restaurants, etc) and wineries or other producers that could enhance product selection and save money for consumers.

H.R. 5034 strikes back against market liberalization that the Supreme Court fostered with its ruling in Granholm v. Heald. In that case, the Court ruled that laws in Michigan and New York violated the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. The laws essentially banned shipments from out-of-state wineries to New York and Michigan residents, but allowed the wineries in those states to ship wine. The court held that any such regulations must apply equally to in-state and out-of-state businesses.

Since then, many states have begun allowing direct-to-consumer wine shipping. Richard Mendelson, wine lawyer and author of “From Demon to Darling: A Legal History of Wine in America,” notes: “Within two and half years of ‘Granholm,’ eleven states had leveled up, and none had leveled down completely. Those states had to open their borders to all direct shipping or close them entirely.” This increased freedom has been a boon to consumers who otherwise would have fewer options. It also helps wineries who have trouble marketing specialty products in a world of increasing competition and consolidation among wholesalers.

But the logic of “Granholm” should also apply to retailers, who are now fighting in federal courts for the right to skip the wholesaler tier. The nation’s largest wine retailer-Costco-has gained a partial victory in Washington state and is helping advance a ballot initiative there that would basically break Washington state’s three-tier mandates.

Wholesalers fear the spread of such deregulation. “Direct-to-consumer shipments will never drive a wholesaler out of business, but the deregulation it is fostering will,” noted Craig Wolf of the Wine and Spirit Wholesalers of America in a 2007 issue of The American. Accordingly, wholesalers have been spending millions in PAC donations to members of Congress, pushing them to pass H.R. 5034. The bill would exercise Congress’s constitutional power to regulate commerce by explicitly allowing states to impose regulations would otherwise violate the Commerce Clause.

As introduced, the bill would have allowed states to pass pretty much any regulation they desired, but a scaled-down substitute version that Rep. Delahunt is expected to offer today remains problematic. Tom Wark of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association points out that this draft opens the door to a host of directly discriminatory state regulations focused on retailers, which could ultimately limit consumers’ online buying options.

But consumers who buy direct from wineries or breweries should remain concerned. In addition to curbing freedoms for retailers, the new draft could also bolster state laws that indirectly discriminate against producers. In other words, it might allow discriminatory tax policies or other regulations that would make direct shipping less viable.

Not only is this legislation bad for consumer freedom, it isn’t necessary to “save” the wholesaler business. Wholesalers will not disappear without a mandated three-tier system. In fact, wholesalers do well in places like California and Washington, D.C. where there are no such mandates. Wholesalers exist because they provide a valuable service in getting products to market-but they should have to compete for their place like everyone else.

A key reason the founders drafted the Constitution was to prevent trade impediments between states and maximize individual freedom. Using Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause to impede commerce simply to serve one-special interest is pure folly.

Angela Logomasini, Ph.D. in American Politics, is a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Learn more about state alcohol laws here.

Source: Daily Mail

Date: September 29, 2010

A drinker who had taken the dance drug mephedrone died after downing a pint of vodka in four seconds, an inquest heard. Richard Davies swallowed the spirits in one go, despite attempts to stop him. The 29-year-old had been drinking with friends before the alcohol – the equivalent of 13 pints of lager – knocked him into a stupor. He was found unconscious and not breathing in a pool of his own blood, and died hours later.

Teesside Coroner’s Court heard how the electrician’s mate, of Thornaby, near Stockton-on-Tees, was five-and-a-half times the legal drink-drive limit. His body also contained traces of the then-legal high mephedrone, which has since been banned. Mr Davies’ best friend Christopher Crooks told the inquest yesterday how he desperately tried to save his life after he was found unconscious. In a statement read out by deputy Teesside coroner Tony Eastwood, he said: ‘Richard drank a pint of vodka in four seconds or so. ‘I did try to take the glass off him, but he turned his back on me, pushed me away, and drank it all.’ Mr Crooks had taken Mr Davies to his stepfather John Brocklesby’s home, in Cobden Street, to sleep off the alcohol.

He made desperate attempts to save his friend when he stopped breathing but by the time paramedics had arrived Mr Davies was dead. Pathologist Jan Lowe said Mr Davies had an alcohol level of 458mg in 100ml of blood, enough to have caused acute alcohol poisoning.

Recording a verdict of misadventure, Mr Eastwood said the alcohol in his system had killed him and that the mephedrone was not a contributing factor.

Learn how to safely intervene and the effects of alcohol.

Source: Record Searchlight

By: Scott Mobley

Date: September 29, 2010

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation championed by a Redding family whose daughter died from alcohol poisoning.

Assembly Bill 1999 would grant limited immunity from prosecution to underage drinkers seeking medical help for themselves or their peers.

Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada/Flintridge) introduced the bill in February, noting several underage drinkers have recently died of alcohol poisoning. They might have survived had their friends not been afraid to call an ambulance, he said.

Debbie Allen, whose 17-year-old daughter Shelby Lyn Allen died of alcohol poisoning just before Christmas 2008, has supported and publicized the bill.

“Not everyone will need this,” Allen said. “But some underage drinkers are afraid to get help because they don’t want to get into trouble, and this takes the trouble out of the picture. Whatever it takes to save a life.”

An underage drinker who calls 911 to report possible alcohol poisoning and cooperates with paramedics and law enforcement once they arrive will be immune from prosecution, under the law. Underage drinking is otherwise a misdemeanor.

AB 1999 is a companion to another bill Schwarzenegger signed in August that eliminates immunity for adults who knowingly supply alcohol to minors.

Allen and her husband, Steve, had also sought the “social host” law, written by Los Angeles Democrat Mike Feuer.

Shelby Allen, a popular Foothill High School junior, was found dead on a bathroom floor at the home of Wallace and Debby Liberman east of Redding.

Shelby Allen died after a bout of intense drinking with the Libermans’ now 18-year-old daughter and another teen. The rest of the Liberman family slept upstairs while the teens drank, sheriff’s deputies said.

Shasta County prosecutors had charged the Liberman teen with involuntary manslaughter in Allen’s death, but a juvenile court judge dismissed the case in November.

The Record Searchlight has not identified the teen because she was a minor when her friend died.

Shelby Allen became ill after drinking 15 shots of vodka in about an hour, according to a court document.

Allen’s two friends took her into the bathroom where she vomited into the toilet. Allen eventually passed out on her knees with her head resting on the toilet seat.

The girls put a towel under her so she could lie on it, the document said.

The Liberman teen stayed with Allen until she believed her friend was fine and checked on her two times before morning. Allen had not moved, according to the court document.

The third girl, who had also become ill, checked Allen later in the morning and thought she wasn’t breathing, according to the court document.

An older sister of the Liberman teen alerted her father, who called 911 and began CPR.

Learn how to how to prevent underage drinking in an alcohol establishment.

Source: CNBC

Date: Sept. 28, 2010

Thanks to new laws, restaurant patrons in Massachusetts can now start ordering cocktails at 10 a.m. on Sundays, instead of noon. In Arizona they can start hitting the bottle at 6 a.m.-four hours earlier than previously allowed.

Fans of the new rules can clink their glasses and toast the recession, which has state and county leaders looking to revise their alcohol sales laws in order to give small businesses in their borders more sales and also increase tax revenue as they face large budget deficits.

Other law revisions are in the works. City and state politicians in Connecticut and Virginia are leading efforts to modify alcohol laws in their states.

“I have followed the ebb and flow of blue laws for 30 years, and in my opinion the pattern is that repeal efforts tick upward every time there’s a downturn in the economy,” said David Laband, economics and policy professor at Auburn University, who wrote a book on the laws that restrict alcohol sales on Sundays.

In the case of Massachusetts, the extra two hours of alcohol sales are meant to give small businesses a needed boost, officials in the state said, but it will also give some added revenue to the state.

“We have noticed a definite increase in our liquor sales and overall traffic on Sunday mornings,” says Alexa Demarco, the general manager of Mooo., a restaurant within the XV Beacon Hotel in Boston. “This has been also an added luxury to our Sunday morning brunch guests who are looking to order a bloody Mary, mimosa or one of our signature cocktails we now have listed on our brunch menu.”

Expanding alcohol sales hours also keeps residents to stay and spend money within a municipality’s borders, rather than leaving to buy alcohol from a neighboring state or county, says Laband. That was the case in Zephyrhills, Fla. The city passed legislation this year that allowed alcohol to be sold starting at 11 a.m. on Sundays instead of 1 p.m. because local restaurants and convenience stores were losing customers to surrounding counties that were selling alcohol at earlier hours, says Linda Boan, the Zephyrhills city clerk.

In Arizona, allowing alcohol sales to start at 6 a.m. on Sundays is expected to give added revenue to businesses around the state and especially to resorts in Phoenix and Scottsdale, says Representative Matt Heinz (D) who backed the amendment after a resident complained about not being able to buy a bottle of wine while doing her Sunday morning shopping for the week. “It’s common-sense, pro-business legislature,” says Heinz.

In Virginia, the governor is proposing to change the entire alcohol sales structure altogether.

In that state, residents can buy alcohol only from government-owned stores. Governor Bob McDonnell (R) proposed a plan in early September to privatize the alcohol system by selling 1,000 alcohol licenses. The sale is expected to give the state $500 million that would be used to improve its transportation systems.

And in Connecticut, the mayors of the three largest cities-Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven-are pushing the governor to repeal the state’s blue laws, which ban alcohol sales on Sunday altogether. The mayor’s are saying the state could reap in $8 million in tax revenue after the repeal.

Experts say that with states and cities continuing to face large deficits, more of them will move to relax their laws.

“The economy is definitely a factor,” says Lisa Hawkins, spokesperson at the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. “States are realizing they’re missing out on much needed revenue.”

Learn more about your state’s alcohol-related laws.