RTDs linked to deaths
By PHIL HAMILTON — The Press — 05 August 2008
Ready-to-drink pre-mixed spirits (RTDs) are being blamed for the alcohol-related deaths of girls in New South Wales, and police and health workers fear the trend is being repeated in this country.
RTDs - or 'alcopops' - have been implicated in a study, compiled by the NSW Child Death Review Team, that found a 37 per cent increase in alcohol-related deaths among young women over the two periods studied, 1996 to 2000 and 2001 to 2005. Over the same period, the risk for boys aged 14 to 17 declined 17 per cent.
"The increase in alcohol-related deaths for females and the decline for males across the two periods may result from several factors, including the introduction of alcopops, first sold in Australia in 1995, which particularly target females," the report said.
Suicide and car fatalities were associated with the alcohol-related deaths, along with poisoning, falls and drownings. Similar statistics are not taken in New Zealand, but Christine Rogan, of Alcohol Healthwatch, said anecdotal evidence backed the Australian findings. "That's extremely concerning but not surprising," she said.
"I think if we started to gather appropriate data in New Zealand, we would find the trend is no different. An increasing amount of alcohol is being consumed by young women and that trend is led by alcopops." Rogan said the introduction of RTDs, which are sweetened so they do not taste of alcohol, had made the problem of teen drinking worse.
"There is a major problem out there with young girls drinking alcohol," she said. "They don't realise that they are at far higher risk of alcohol-related harm socially, emotionally, physically. They can get themselves in all sorts of trouble."
The head of the Christchurch police liquor licensing section, Sergeant Al Lawn, said the study fitted with what he knew. "It doesn't surprise me the mortality rate would be going up," he said. "You only have to look at the emergency department and the problems they're having with drinking. They've had a gutsful of drunks getting in the way of doing real work."
He said there was no doubt there was a link between alcohol and many suicides. Lawn said alcohol was a major contributor to sexual assaults. "Young women are drinking to excess and then being taken advantage of sexually," he said. "It's a very big problem." Rogan said efforts must be made to curb problem drinking by stopping aggressive marketing, increasing prices and trying to change the drinking culture.
Lawn said he thought a restriction of about 4 per cent alcohol should be put on RTDs as there was no need to make them as high as 12 per cent. He said the high alcohol contents were used by liquor outlets as a selling point. "When they're advertising RTDs they put the strength in there," he said. "Why do they do that? They don't do that with beer.
It's because teenagers are very price-sensitive and want to know how drunk they can get for their $20." Wellington Hospital research last year showed the number of drunk young women admitted to its emergency department was matching that of boys. Among 13 and 14-year-olds, more drunk girls than boys were admitted.