More Health Experts Back Action on Alcopops

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10 March 2009

More health experts have come out today to support the Government’s action on alcopops.

In evidence to the Senate inquiry on alcopops, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, President of the AMA, declared the AMA supported the measure.

“The AMA would see it as a retrograde step if the alcopops tax did not go through,” she said.

Last Thursday 20 health experts took out a half-page ad in The Australian calling on Senators to back the measure.

On Sunday, the Australian Drug Foundation released new figures showing the number of alcopops sold in Australia has dropped by 310 million standard drinks since the measure was introduced, with the biggest fall in vodka-based alcopops, “favoured by under-aged girls and other young female binge drinkers.”

A recent study in the Medical Journal of Australia by health experts found that the measure was working effectively, with a 2.7 per cent decline in alcohol consumption.

On one side of this debate are health experts and the Rudd Government.

On the other side, the Liberals and the alcopops industry remain sadly united, determined to protect the industry’s profits at the expense of our young people.

It is time for the Liberals to start listening to health experts, and stop listening to the alcopops industry whispering in their ear.

The alcopops measure is one part of the Rudd Government’s comprehensive approach to tackling binge-drinking, including:

• $14.4 million in community-level initiatives to confront the culture of binge drinking, in partnership with sporting and community organisations
• $19.1 million to intervene earlier to assist young people and ensure that they assume personal responsibility
• $20 million advertising campaign, Don’t Turn a Night Out into a Nightmare, confronting youth with the consequences of binge drinking
• $872 million funding for preventative health, announced at COAG in November 2008, which will include new initiatives to tackle binge-drinking – and which fulfils the Government’s commitment, made at the time the alcopops measure was announced, to deliver the largest Australian Government investment ever in preventative health.