In a series of recent papers, our research team has documented the impact of community interventions at reducing alcohol-related harm in the Geelong region in Victoria. What we found was that despite the best of intentions, none of the interventions reduced emergency department attendances and one was associated with an increase.
Geelong has a long and proud tradition of trying to address alcohol-related harms in a collaborative and creative manner. Council, police, licensees and Deakin University researchers have worked together to reduce these harms in the community while ensuring young people have an enjoyable social life.
Geelong was one of the first cities in the world to implement a liquor accord. And, between 2006 and 2009, it trialled a number of innovative approaches based on cooperation. Current interventions include a taxi rank and a closed circuit television (CCTV) network that now operates in conjunction with a radio program that connects police to security staff in licensed venues, camera operators and fast-food venues. Identity scanners were also installed in every late night (open after 1am) licensed premises in the city.
A new initiative
In June 2008, with no involvement from the liquor accord or local community safety committee, the “Just Think” campaign was launched by the local tabloid newspaper, the Geelong Advertiser. Funded by the alcohol industry social aspect/public relations organisation (SAPRO) DrinkWise, the campaign used football stars to endorse this message: “We’re not saying don’t drink, we’re saying just think.”
The campaign featured pictures of battered victims alongside football stars. These were sporadically implanted into the news cycle. The Just Think campaign was very popular with politicians, the media and many community stakeholders. It was adopted by the AFL and recommended by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
It’s important to note that campaigns like this one have been a favoured vehicle for the tobacco, gambling and alcohol industries in the past; they have a high profile but don’t reduce consumption or profits.
The research
Our research project evaluated the impact of all the measures (individually and collectively) trying to tackle alcohol-related problems around licensed venues in Geelong. The findings published in the Drug and Alcohol Review and The Open Criminology Journal demonstrated that community interventions in Geelong failed to have an impact on injury presentations to local hospitals or assaults reported to police through to mid-2009.
We found the radio network, identity scanners and CCTV were useful in the detection and solving of crimes. But the Just Think campaign was associated with significant increases in both assaults and injury presentations at the Geelong hospital emergency department. The increases occurred at the same time as the campaign.
The association doesn’t necessarily mean that the Just Think caused the increase in assaults but there are plausible reasons for why it may have.
Violence and the campaign
The Just Think campaign sensationalised alcohol-fuelled violence by putting photos of bloodied victims on the front page of newspapers, and labelling incidents with a Just Think badge if they may have involved alcohol. But the program provided no practical strategies to avoid aggression or defuse potentially violent situations.
Successful campaigns in violence prevention need to give practical strategies; over 30 years of research tells us weak awareness campaigns are popular but ineffective.
In the absence of any practical strategies, Just Think only raised awareness of violence. This may have produced increased apprehension about entering dangerous environments and increased readiness to resort to violence to avert retaliation. These are only potential mechanisms, but in the face of the data, they are plausible.
The increased rates of emergency attendances and assaults were disappointing news for the Geelong community, but the much greater concern is the subsequent failure to report our findings about Just Think.
An unhealthy coalition?
A recent Geelong Advertiser article reported our research findings on assaults, but failed to mention the contribution of Just Think to the problem. Nor did the article report the money (an undisclosed amount) that the Geelong Advertiser received from DrinkWise.
Instead, the article noted, “The study said police and council initiatives implemented between 1991 and 2009 failed to reduce drunken assaults.” This omitted our findings regarding Just Think and implied the council and police had failed, as had the local licensees working with them.
The good news is that the implementation of more innovative and collaborative interventions may finally have had an impact on alcohol-related problems, which have now levelled off. But, this experience illustrates how unhealthy coalitions can form to advance commercial interests over the public good.
The public and government clearly need independent advice on what strategies are effective for combating social harms.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory Analyst
Maybe people can't think when they've consumed too much alcohol. I was reading recently about the Newcastle experience. It seems closing pubs earlier led to a drop in violence. Perhaps the nannyists are right after all.
Tracy Heiss
logged in via Facebook
Many young people I know do two things ahead of a 'big night out'. The prohibitive cost of drinks in licensed venues has not reduced their intake; they simply buy spirits and drink them in secret, often resulting in rapid intoxication, and they buy illegal drugs because they are cheaper. Combine these two factors and you have a time bomb ticking.
The more expensive you make a night out, through pigovian taxes, the worse the violence will get. Why doesn't anyone recognise this? When it was affordable to drink beer, the violence was lower.
Stephen Lehocz
Stephen Lehocz is a Friend of The Conversation.
Interested public.
Tracy I think your on the right track.
Read moreProhibition has never been successful, witness America in the 1920‘s. And illegal drugs are ludicrously easy to obtain, cheap, even home delivered.
And you mentioned illegal drugs in the mix, I’m wondering if the extreme violence is more an indication of the illegal drugs being mixed with the alcohol rather than the alcohol by itself. This I think needs research. I’m a ‘baby boomer’ and I don’t recall this level of violence before the illegal drugs became…
Dennis Alexander
logged in via LinkedIn
Tracy, I'm not convinced by the assertion that cheap beer means less violence. First, reporting, especially of domestic violence, has changed since beer was cheap. Second, cheap beer won't stop kids buying 2 litres of coke and a bottle of cheap spirits and drinking themselves into a stupor. They were doing it when beer was cheap and they'll continue doing it whilesoever they can afford cheap spirits.
I think the problem is deeply cultural in Western European societies, more so in Anglophone societies and add a bit more for Australia - though the UK gives us a run for our money in the boozing and belting each other up stakes. It needs some really serious research to find ways to address the issues involved. Either that or we leave it to Darwin.
Tracy Heiss
logged in via Facebook
I find it interesting that both our comments are considered unconstructive. Throwing different ideas out doesn't appeal to some people. I would have thought that any and all ideas would warrant consideration, rather than to be actively labelled uncontructive.
Stephen Lehocz
Stephen Lehocz is a Friend of The Conversation.
Interested public.
You expressed my thoughts exactly.
Peter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
They really need a third sort of flag on here ... amber maybe ... agree in part or that bit's OK but not all of it.
I suspect that the tragic fact is that we are living in a more violent and abusive society than I grew up in. And I grew up in a steel town. I saw lots of drunken fights - but never did I see anyone king-hit let alone stomped on.
There's a sense of cowardly frenzy to this sort of violence... not to win a fight but to actually kill or maim or injure the opponent.
I think…
Read moreBruce Moon
Bystander!
Peter
I suggest you are right to be critical of measures used to (ineffectively) address alcohol fueled violence. You are also correct to assert these measures fail to address the core problem - an industry intent on promoting alcohol consumption.
I would have liked to read what you suggest might work at mitigating this increasingly social problem.
You write:
"The good news is that the implementation of more innovative and collaborative interventions may finally have had an impact on…
Read moreTracy Heiss
logged in via Facebook
I like your idea of implementing the .05 measures. Unfortunately, people will consume illegal drugs and sneak alcohol, so how would licensees police this? The cause is that people want to be inebriated. Restrictions have been shown not to be effective. I think we need to lighten up about consumption, lower prices of alcohol, have 24 hour trading. Uniform closing hours have been shown to be dangerous, and don't work. I do feel that plastic cups are fine after certain hours in certain locations. I also think perhaps venues could fund safe sobering up shelters (for temporary use).
Whatever the case, I'm just thankful my adult kids don't live in a city! This does seem to be a predominantly city centric problem.
Dianna Arthur
Dianna Arthur is a Friend of The Conversation.
Environmentalist
A shame the .05 limit cannot be implemented in the family home. Our children do not need parents returning home with a 'skin-full' and be abused verbally or physically by an out of control parent.
Too many nights hiding does not make for children growing into healthy well adjusted adults.
@Tracy Heiss
Violence occurs anywhere, it is just more obvious on city streets.
Tracy Heiss
logged in via Facebook
Yes I know Dianna. I was speaking in terms of this particular aspect of violence in night club/ hotel cluster areas.
I've worked in women's refuges in Darwin and the ACT, and I'm all too familiar with the scourge that is alcohol abuse.
Bruce Moon
Bystander!
Tracy
The idea of point 05 is that in itself it is not a restriction to alcohol consumption.
Rather, it is a measure to take drunk people away from public places. This is not only streets, but public transport, cabs, etc.
If people wish to become inebriated in a private place. the point 05 approach still allows them to so do.
- - -
As for drugs and violence, I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable on that to make a comment.
Cheers
Dianna Arthur
Dianna Arthur is a Friend of The Conversation.
Environmentalist
I do know that not all drugs are created equal.
For example, have yet to hear of someone inciting a riot or bashing one's family after a few cones of cannabis. However, even the mellowing effects of weed can be neutered by a skin-full of grog.
The amphetamine family which includes speed, crack, ice are very nasty; particularly when combined with alcohol.
Who needs black market drugs when alcohol does such a magnificent job all by itself of bringing out the very worst in people.
We have placed labels on cigarettes - I believe it is time to label alcohol accordingly.
Peter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
One of the things that actually upset me greatly on moving into the rolling pastures of Woolibuddha was to discover the enthusiasm of the local kiddies for "goey" ... meth amphetamine in it's various forms.
Distributed very efficiently and routinely by bikies even into tiny fly-speck towns like mine, the wide streets of Woolibuddha are awash with the stuff.
And meanwhile the cop from 30 miles away or so busts some old codger with MS for shaking the moral foundations of our way of life by growing six illicit plants in his shadehouse. And he of course drinks every night down at the local - watching the kiddies stagger out to their cars.
Dianna Arthur
Dianna Arthur is a Friend of The Conversation.
Environmentalist
The injustice! The hypocrisy!
I thought that growing a few little plants for personal use was legal in Victoria.
I hope the poor old fellow kept a few seeds. I hear that MJ is very helpful for those suffering from MS. In California (where else?) people with MS can be prescribed the stuff. But not in the 'enlightened' district of Woolibuddha.
Jon Hunt
Medical Practitioner
This is analogous to the problems of alcohol related violence in Aboriginal communities which I have experieinced after working in Port Augusta for a number of years. I grew very tired of having to deal with all the injuries that can come about too much alcohol, many of which were life threatening. The only thing that has been done to reduce this was to create "dry areas", meaning they just drink somewhere else, out of sight of tourists presumably. The only intervention I am aware of to help with this problem is to reduce supply, usually meaning reducing either opening hours of pubs or reducing quantities bought. Again, I think it is a case of the welfare of pubs and the alcohol injury which takes precedence over what can be a very destructive drug.
Jon Hunt
Medical Practitioner
I think I meant "alcohol industry"...!
Peter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
Interesting and disturbing bit of work this.
The underlying premise of "educational" interventions - that kids are unaware of the consequences of grog - have always seemed rather quaint to me. They know all too well. That's why they do it.
The drivers for teenage binge drinking and drugged violence are much more profound and social than any worthy education effort can address. It has to do with anger, depression, what we watch on TV, being rebellious, taking risks, how kids acquire "status…
Read moreMargo Saunders
Public Health Policy Researcher
Dale's seemingly simple point is actually quite important: any campaign that is based on an expectation of rational thought by individuals who have consumed mind-altering/mood-altering substances, often in an environment with powerful social influences, is not likely to succeed. After even a couple of drinks, a lot of things that people would not do in other circumstances seem like a good idea at the time. We can forgive the alcohol industry, in its various guises, for continuing to push the 'just think' line, as they know it's silly. Not sure what the excuse is for anyone else.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Getting drunk and fighting is a risk, and should be controlled by risk management systems.
Campaigns in newspapers and on TV are “administrative control” measures, which are regarded as the least likely method of reducing risks, and no wonder they don’t work.
http://www.monash.edu.au/ohs/management-system/risk-management.pdf
“Elimination” is the most likely way to control risk, which means not drinking alcohol. The drinking age must be increased.
We also hear teachers say they have a significant effect on the lives of young people, and teachers voluntary not drinking would be a significant role model for young people.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory Analyst
Of course, teachers drinking with students is what I meant.
Aubrey Anderson
logged in via Facebook
This article peaked my interest on so many levels, one I am from Geelong, went to deakin- worked in the student association- attempting to risk manage events like o'week in Geelong, now however i work in far north queensland and run a drug and alcohol service for young people. I have seen the effect of ID scanners both in Geelong and now implemented here in Cairns, as well as the linking on inner city security- venue security and police to coordinate repsonses. i have assisted my own organisations…
Read moreAubrey Anderson
logged in via Facebook
wow i apologise for all the grammar and spelling....
Stephen Lehocz
Stephen Lehocz is a Friend of The Conversation.
Interested public.
My God, your on the front line. And you have some workable solutions.
Better yet they have been shown to work, from your own personal experience.
Hopefully some politicians will read your comment, that have the determination to do something and utilize what you have found to work and apply it to where it’s needed.
Besides a lot of smart people read these articles. So there’s hope your message will get around.
Thank you for doing something effective. As far as I’m concerned keep on ranting, you at least have done something effective. It would be interesting to know how many lives you saved and how many tragedies you’ve prevented.
Also - if I have one complaint about this site, it’s that you can’t fix the typos. So take care, the typos are there for all to see - for a long time :)