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From the promo:

“We are not facing a crisis, we’re in a crisis. It’s occurring right now.”

Read the statistics and it’s hard to argue with these dire warnings. The latest figures show that each year as many as 70,000 people are involved in alcohol-related assaults. In all, it is estimated that alcohol-related violence costs the community $187 million each year. Four Corners also reveals there’s a growing body of evidence that shows a link between binge drinking and brain damage. As one expert explained:

“You will face assault, you will assault, you will have falls. You will find yourself with a brain injury as a result of the long-term use of alcohol.”

While the overall incidence of alcohol-related violent crime varies in each state in Australia, one thing is clear: the violence associated with alcohol abuse is getting more extreme. Indeed one key judicial figure has taken the unusual step of opening his court to the cameras and telling Four Corners:

“One day someone is going to sit down and weigh up the benefit in terms of taxes to government from the sale of alcohol, against the detriment or the cost to governments of servicing the consequences of violence.”

The reporter’s pose: “Why is Government backing away from a fight with the Alcohol Industry?”

Expert answers: “They’ve donated quite large amounts of money to political parties – on both sides.”

That sounds plausible! This should be an interesting show.

Reporter Alison Piotrowski found 90% of those they surveyed had pre loaded prior to hitting their preferred “entertainment” precinct. Of these, 60% had already consumed more than 6 standard drinks. Paul Dillon, famed alcohol researcher, reported that because the pre loaders were affected by their intoxication their often held intention of not spending so much once out – goes out the window! The binge more often continues – from the pre load to the streets and to the clubs. Paul correctly focuses on the supermarket corporations who sell alcohol to cheaper than bottled water. (Many of the same people working in Australia’s supermarkets have been brought over to Australia from the UK, having ruined that country’s young so completely and so profitably)

Paul points to parents across the country condoning and participating in the binge drinking activities of their children. “It’s just horrific – it makes no sense” is Paul’s lament.

Alison speaks of these young folk trying to find “confidence at the bottom of a bottle” with helpful, drunk young folks proffering their support. Alison makes no mention of “addiction”.

Popular media medico, Dr Kerryn Phelps stated that a pre loader having consumed 6 -10 drinks is twice as likely to get into trouble with the law, have accidents or be involved in assaults and sexual assaults. And Dr Phelps points to 4 out of every 10 pedestrians killed on our roads have a BAC over point 05. “So, just walking around drunk is a health risk”. Well said Dr Phelps. We could add a “crime risk” and “social risk” and others.

28% of Australian women between the ages of 14 – 24 binge drink – a figure doubling the tragic numbers of the year 2000.

Big Liquor’s social engineers have done their jobs well. It’s amazing what millions of dollars in marketing research and garnering political support for favourable media and licensing laws can do for you. “Democracy doesn’t come cheap” said one BL social engineer.

Dr Phelps points to their increase in risks of assaults and sexual assaults and accidents – but doesn’t mention the propensity for FASD nor the cancers nor the addiction.

ACA labels their slide “women” when the women mentioned include 14 YO children. “Females” would have been more accurate. That a media company considers a 14 YO to be a “woman” is indicative of that industries predilection for seeing them as fair game – a fair market for normalizing alcohol use.

Herald Sun columnist Suzie O’Brien points to the risks binge drinking females run – all to commonly run. Unfortunately, she believes that the cohort pictured by Alison would somehow change their behaviour  – if they were made aware of these risks that include sexual assault, murder and unprotected sex. Susie, it’s been found time and again that education programs don’t change behaviour – unless they are packaged with a hard legal edge…  Why repeat false hopes and disproved lies?

For whatever reason, perhaps there is a banned words register for journalists in Australia, but Allison’s piece never mentions the word “addiction”, or “cancer” or phrases such as “birth defects/abnormalities” or “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder”. The truly frightening – all too real realities that many of these kids depicted on this segment will have to suffer or otherwise face – these are never mentioned or shown. No gory photos of affected brains of FAS babies. No cancer or liver operations.

We cannot truly and comprehensively outline the realities of commercialised binge drinking in Australia’s media. It must be a freedom of speech issue!

She could offer no explanation as to how she obtained my home number, stating that it was on the web site. It was a pat, reflexively given answer.  She refused to make any effort to explain herself.

Readers will note that a Media Inquiry Number is made available on the very front page or landing page of this website.

This is a known, long held tactic, by those nasties working for Big Liquor.

Something I was warned about at the very start of the campaign, some years ago.

Mike Cockburn

1. All venues to have available, near blood test quality, audio visually capable, BAC Testing Machines for self testing by alcohol users.
2. A simple, easy to understand limit on where “Responsible Drinking” ends, put into law.
3. 80% of the program budget spent on educating users about staying under Point 08, and the risks of binge drinking.
4. 20% of the program budget spent on targeted, on street, pedestrian RBT.

No information given letting readers know that only campaigns with a hard legal edge work! (WHO)

No information about the failure of RSA nor the litany of tragic outcomes from this failure of government policy.

No information about how P-RBT could routinely detect and divert, underage alcohol users, goon baggers – nor how it would clean up Kings Cross, other Sydney and NSW trouble spots, including public transport.

It’s not serious is it? Just an absence of facts about a deadly serious subject.

Meanwhile, Healthland reports this finding:

Exposure to alcohol in utero leads to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in about 40,000 newborns every year in the U.S.

And:

For every one additional drink the mothers consumed between their 43rd and 84th days of pregnancy, their babies had a 16% greater chance of being born smaller than average, which may put them at greater risk for mental and physical problems. Their infants were also more likely to have birth defects, such as a 25% higher risk of a smooth ridge linking the nose and upper lip, a 12% increased risk of an abnormally small head and a 22% greater chance of unusually thin upper lips.

Which would undoubtedly be of great concern to some challenged individuals at this blog…

The show, Punch Drunk found here, and via podcast here, was ably led by Anton Enus and produced a series of harrowing personal stories of violence, maiming and death. All too common in Big Liquor’s Australia.

Many found it shocking – and rightly so. However, viewers would quickly pick up that no guest had anything like a complete overview of the effects of the epidemic, across the range of welfare, medical and police situations – with the possible exception of Dr Crozier.

Nor did any guest have a viable swag of solutions that could directly address even the narrow focus of the show – the violence on our streets.

Pedestrian 08 – the use of a Blood Alcohol Content Maximum enshrined in Law – along with in house Breathalyser Machines; Random Pedestrian Blood Testing; and serious behaviour changing consequences for offenders – wasn’t mentioned. Nor were other policies such as a minimum price per unit of alcohol; returning the minimum age to 21 (in Australia); minimising the number and opening hours and all round availability of alcohol; and the complete ban on alcohol advertising and marketing – especially through sporting coverage.

Effective counter measures – directly impacting the scope of the problem were, on the whole, not mentioned nor discussed. Why?

The latter would not be due to the vast array of promotions for alcohol provided by SBS via advertising and publicity provided via its rampant coverage of liquor addled sports.

Every soccer jumper with a liquor ad, targets the young admirer. Priming them to readily accept alcohol at younger and younger ages. This is a long known observation. Along with the link between younger alcohol users and binge drinking and violence. Can SBS producers not see it?

Nearly every combat outpost in Afghanistan is automatically part of a volatile mix: a hardened enemy, increasingly sophisticated and deadly land mines, nervous young soldiers, powerful weapons and machinery, suicide bombers, the stress of multiple deployments, searing heat, unfriendly locals, unfamiliar languages.

The U.S. Army has concluded that adding alcohol to that mix is unwise.

But now, with the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians, alcohol has been suggested as a possible causal factor in the killings…

And:

The military’s General Order No. 1 prohibits the possession or consumption of alcohol in five countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still, alcohol finds its way onto bases and outposts, either passed from soldiers from other countries, smuggled in from local markets or delivered in care packages from home. Sometimes the alcohol is disguised as mouthwash — usually gin or vodka doctored with blue-green food coloring.

And:

An assistant secretary of the navy, Juan Garcia, said a pilot Breathalyzer program in submarine units had yielded a 45 percent decrease in “alcohol-related incidents.’’

The Moral of the Story?

Even in heavily disciplined environments, only random breath testing delivers!

Only random breath testing will find the illicit alcohol.

No one in Australia and the UK can point to a single harm minimization program that can instantly produce a 45% decline in Alcohol Harms.

In fact, so out of touch are the Australian Drug Foundation, that Mr Geoff Munro, National Policy Manager, hadn’t even heard of the U.S. Navy’s pioneering success.

And, he admitted he had nothing to do with the Northern Territory’s outstanding success with Drinking Licensing in Chronically Affected areas.

Nothing effective comes from the ADF.

I’ve repeatedly challenged Mr Munro to come up with one policy innovation that the ADF has come up with.

He refuses to believe a projected 5% increase in ethanol consumed, “despite” all the “evidence based” measures supported by Mr Munro.

Come up with it Geoff! All the programs that led to a population wide decrease of 45% of toxic, carcinogenic, teratogenic and addictive alcohol, that you recommended, and you achieved!

Geoff has a thing about identifying “evidence” for the potential of Pedestrian 08 as the genuine life saving policy that it certainly is. (In this business, “Evidence Based” can be code for “Do nothing because no one else has done it yet” or “I can’t back this because minister xyz says I can’t”)

He has a problem relating the success of Australia’s most successful life saving measure against the many harms committed by Big Liquor – in this case Drunk Driving (DUI) – largely beaten by our famous Motorist Point 05 Campaign. This is the model on which Pedestrian 08 stands.  “No evidence!” declared Geoff. He chooses not to see the success of RBT as used by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority to detect errant Commercial Pilots.  “No Evidence!” Nor does he know about what happens to Aviation Safety when you withdraw this safety measure. Witness the recent news of a struggling Indian Airline who couldn’t afford to maintain their Random Breath and Drug Testing. This resulted in one pilot caught by other authorities trying to fly his jumbo on a BAC of 0.09! Not to mention a building total of 50 – that’s FIFTY other transgressors on drugs and or alcohol fortuitously caught by other authorities. That would be “No Evidence!” I suppose Geoff! Leading to the biggest news so far reinforcing this model: The recent success and expansion of the U.S. Navy via its Nuclear Powered Submarine Fleet involving a whopping 45% Turnaround – “No, I haven’t heard of it” and 5 mins later: “No evidence”.

The ADF are fundamentally out of the loop on this one. Totally out of the loop. This is a PR machine. That’s it.

Geoff was presiding over a the first forum funded to raise awareness of Victoria’s Secondary Supply laws, along with advice to parents on how to handle children and alcohol.

Geoff and company acknowledged a guess that only ten percent of any audience of parents at any forum would know of the toxic, carcinogenic, teratogenic and addictive nature of alcohol.

Yet, their presentation gave no facts to parents likely to deter them passing on their own habits and addictions onto their children. Eg: Big Liquor Maims Babies (FASD), Big Liquor causes Cancer, Big Liquor sells a toxic substance, Big Liquor promotes addiction, violence etc.

As I stated:”I don’t get it. The parents don’t know the dangers – no one else is going to tell them – and you are working for the government. You don’t warn them so they think it’s a drug with no side effects like they see it on TV? Who is going to tell them!”

Dissembling response only.

It then gets worse! The presentation included a line advising Parents not to supply alcohol to anyone under the age of 15. What a disgrace! A government funded front refusing to outline dangers to parents who may well need the truth about this killing, maiming drug of addiction. Then they move on to advising Parents to supply their child with Underage Drinking.

What is going on at the Australian Drug Foundation?

Geoff also acknowledged not being involved, in any way, in the Northern Territories recent success with Drink Licenses. (The N.T. gained an instant 15% drop in offenses).

It seems governments and authorities don’t look to Geoff’s ADF when ever anything effective needs to be done.

Yet they routinely minimize risk – where they see it – and can do something about it!

In short they value life! Can we say the same Australia’s Civilian “Commanders” in jurisdictions such as the city councils of Australia’s Capital Cities and Australia’s State Government Premiers?

Can we say the same for the Governments of the UK and others?

Can we say the same for the leadership of Australia’s Defence Force (ADF)?

US Nuke Subs have Missiles, Super Computers, Torpedoes and now Breathalyzers!

The US Navy and Marines have evaluated various solutions and found what we discovered decades ago. The most effective behaviour changing process you can invent to beat the scourge of binge drinking-alcohol fueled violence and pedestrian deaths is via Random Breath Testing (BAC Testing).

From the online edition of the Wall Street Journal, first printed on 6th March,  2012, headed Navy, Marines to Start Random Alcohol Tests, by Nathan Hodge, I present these quotes:

The Navy and Marines said Monday they plan to introduce random breath tests of personnel on duty as part of a broader health-and-safety push…

And:

The U.S. military already randomly tests members of all branches for illegal drug use. But resorting to breath tests—which detect blood alcohol levels from a breath sample—represents a first for military personnel.

And:

Some Navy crew members, for instance, will have to take a breath test when reporting aboard a ship for duty and other sailors will be subjected to random inspections.

And as part of their prior testing of RBT methods:

The Navy’s submarine fleet in the Pacific has already experimented with a pilot breath-test program that began in 2009. Officials say that program led to a 45% decrease in alcohol-related incidents, such as arrests for driving [cars!] under the influence.

US Nuclear Submarine Torpedo Room. Every finger on every button belongs to a sober, drug free serviceman or woman.

We have no immediate feedback on how many Submarine to Submarine collisions were avoided…

Note, in Australia we have a long history of proving the targeted effectiveness of RBT via our motorist targeted Point 05 Campaign which has saved hundreds of lives in the process.

Confusingly, a recent Defense Force Inquiry found that

alcohol use is common among ADF personnel and … there is also a high prevalence of drinking at hazardous levels. …this situation has existed in the ADF for a
considerable time, despite some commendable efforts to comprehensively address it over the years.”

Comment: Commendable Efforts don’t cut it. People, including civilians are regularly dying whilst these “Commendable Efforters” fail to hit a cultural change target.
(Just ask family and friends of victims of HMAS Cerberus – a major cultural trend setter training base in Victoria, Australia.
And:

26.4% of ADF members report consuming alcohol at hazardous or harmful
levels. …risky drinking in the ADF is an important contributor to
alcohol related harm

Comment, a quick read proves where the major attention of the defence force chiefs will be drawn:

…an analysis of the volume of negative television, radio and press
coverage of the ADF and its personnel in relation to alcohol found that in 2010–2011 there
were 2,666 such reports, which reached a cumulative potential audience of 81,159,239 and
had an advertising space rate of $4,445,812. This was a 347% increase from 2009–2010

And paid spin doctors, get typing on your response to a likely Tender:

Any explicit communication strategy can be readily undermined by adverse counter messages
and in this context the Panel advises the ADF to develop an organisation-wide policy on
alcohol industry sponsorship and promotion of ADF people, units, and events that has a
specific intent of reducing alcohol related harm

Comment: ADF personel could use their common sense, review what The US Navy submariners have found, and do what they do, and add more measures.
(ADF: No charge for that advice…)

Meanwhile, in a tale of how hard it is to put across a message of so-called “safe” alcohol consumption,  Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council’s new guidelines are known by only 5% of respondents (source: research conducted by the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research)

Study author Michael Livingston should consider the idea of adapting Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) findings and translate the size and type of drink recommendations to BAC Levels – Over Time.

The Pedestrian 08 policy includes the mandatory installation of BAC Testing machines (breathalysers), at a set ratio to the number of clients in the venue, so that any alcohol user will have immediate access to a testing machine. Saving yet more motorists from unintentional drunk driving (BAC 0.05) and for “drink-walking” (BAC 0.08). Providing an extra lines of defense for motorists via self-initiated, in venue BAC testing; Police initiated Pedestrian RBT (P-RBT) – picking up those who, with an affected judgement, intend to drive; as well as picking up those offending against new P-RBT limits.

It would be a minor matter of programming to enable the user’s test sample and time entered to give the user instant feedback on how the users current BAC Level fits into the NHMRC guidelines – via the audio-visual capabilities of BAC Testing machines.

An example expression given in both written (Multi-languages) and with an accompanying spoken word may include: “You have a BAC of naught point O 8. You are over this jurisdictions Pedestrian BAC limit. For your own safety and to avoid being fined, please remain in your licensed Liquor Venue for at least another 20 mins. Let your friendly bar staff know. Please re-check your BAC level prior to leaving. Your BAC level indicates an intake well in excess of National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines. Try and avoid any more alcohol intake for 2-3 days. [a short blurb to state the modified, BAC/Time variant of NHMRC guidelines to follow].”*

* It would be good to get feedback on this idea. It gives you an idea of the potential for in venue BAC testing, how a stated BAC law will provoke (in fact guarantee) a general user awareness of their BAC level at all times whilst engaged in use of alcohol. The same Breathalysers / Breathalyzers can serve an educative role for broad liquor consumption guidelines and give specific feedback on where the user’s breath test fit’s them into the practice of the same guidelines.