User talk:Claire Harkins

Claire's favourite Star Trek character

Have a look at the resources section of the page on CoRWM: http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/CoRWM or http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Bell_Pottinger_Communications#References

The key thing is to reference docuemtns fully (ie author, title, source, vdate etc) and to upload the documents to the site via the 'upload image' link under 'special pages'. To determine the url for the uploaded file right click on the name of it once uploaded and 'copy link location'.

OK?

--David 13:17, 19 Feb 2007 (GMT)

author, title for this doc dates etc et

look at the formatting of the spock pic to get the right formatting for Brian Stewart... --David 16:18, 22 Feb 2007 (GMT)

Hi,

leave the page where it is and note that its successor is the noew org. Might be worth including a couple of lines on the new oprg and noting that S and N no longer fund.

Do you know why they don't? --David 08:42, 6 Mar 2007 (GMT)

Hi,

can you make sure that you reference with full refs eg in the Grant page: Alcohol and Alcoholism Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 217-218, 2000 --David 13:51, 7 Mar 2007 (GMT)

I think your decision to target the Alcohol issue is a good one. I would suggest that you think seriously about blitzing the Exec or the DoH with foi's on this as the exec has a new strategy on this and ti would be more than interesting to find out more about their arrangement with the industry. I read your stuff on Portmans charity being reshapedd. I think this is worth a little digging as it is a pretty unusual approach. A few Fois on that?

Best to get the fois in now if you want to be able to follow up before deadline!

--David 10:07, 9 Mar 2007 (GMT)

Found this, thought it might be useful: Alcohol

Like tobacco, alcohol is a legal killer. According to the York Centre for Health Economics, 33,000 deaths a year in Britain are alcohol related,85 as are one in four hospital admissions.86 About 20 percent of strokes in young people are preceded by bouts of heavy drinking.87 Alcohol, like other drugs, can be either a leisure drug, a chemical walking stick or a health hazard.

Governments can reduce some potential danger by implementing policies such as drink driving campaigns, or 'Less is better' publicity.88 The government initially adopted Royal Medical College guidelines in 1987 for safe levels of alcohol consumption of 21 units per week for men and 14 for women ( a unit is half a pint of beer, a glass of wine or a single measure of spirits). Yet most drink advertisements target the young heavy drinker to try and establish brand loyalty. According to Alcohol Concern, approximately 8 million people drink more than the safe limit.89 Senior medical officers protested strongly when the government, pressurised by the drink lobby, changed the guidelines just before Christmas 1995 and implied that 28 units were safe.90

Occasionally in history governments have inhibited the drinks trade, but not to protect their citizens from the effects of alcohol. Sometimes the suppression of alcohol has been used as the excuse for colonial land grabs. The eradication of 'whisky trading', for example, was used in this way by the Canadian Mounted Police in the 19th century.91 The elimination of 'poteen' production was used as an excuse by the British for evicting the Irish during the land clearances in the last century.'92 In Britain during the First World War liquor licensing hours were imposed to discipline the workforce and strict controls were introduced on the quantity and quality of the beer. Scared by the strike wave in 1919, the government agreed that an increase in the supply 'would do much to allay the prevailing unrest'.93

Today many governments are more likely to encourage the expansion of the markets in dangerous drugs such as alcohol and tobacco, while simultaneously hinting at possible health service cuts or charges in relation to 'self induced' addictive smoking or drinking. This is similar to the Victorian morality of ascribing all social ills to individual degeneracy. Some of the rhetoric of the temperance movement was as hysterical as the anti-drugs hysteria today. Well into the 1940s 'Band of Hope' meetings were misinforming people that one drink could lead to alcoholism. Eight year olds signed the pledge never to touch drink. It was similar to the 'Say No to Drugs' campaign touted by Nancy Reagan in the 1980s - and just as ineffective.

Currently drinks manufacturers are pushing alcoholic lemonades and other alco-pops for youngsters at a time when 1,000 children a year are admitted to hospitals with acute alcoholic poisoning.94 Alcohol Concern has attempted to put pressure on the drinks industry to stop promoting under age drinking with alco-pops. The alco-pops market is worth around £400 million a year and in May 1997 a survey found that 65 percent of boys and 54 percent of girls were drinking regularly by the age of 16.95 In July 1997 the British Medical Association called for tougher laws on alco-pops with a warning that an epidemic of liver disease could occur in 20 years if young people were encouraged to drink heavily.96 Whilst under heavy pressure to withdraw alco-pops, two new marketing gimmicks were introduced. Milk drinks called Moo and Super Milch strawberry and banana flavour with more alcohol than a pint of bitter and sachets of 40 percent proof spirits called Totpacs were on the market.97

In theory the industry has its own regulating authority, the Portman Group, which operates a voluntary code of advertising standards.98 Even the Portman Group upheld a complaint about the new drinks but nothing happened. The Portman Group claims to be the watchdog of alcohol advertising but it has no sanctions and no teeth. Indeed its declared aim is 'to promote sensible drinking'. This statement of intent has been challenged by Professor Nick Heater, Director of the Newcastle Centre for Alcohol and Drug Studies, who claims their agenda is slightly different: 'The attempt to distance alcohol as a drug from other kinds of drug and to give it a good face is the main activity of groups like the Portman Group... In late 1994 the Portman Group operated a scheme which offered medical scientists £2,000 pending their agreement to criticise a damning new book on alcohol'. 99

It might be a little too strong to claim that the impetus behind the hysteria about ecstasy originates from a drinks industry which finds its profits threatened by the popularity of competing dance drugs. But a report on Leisure Futures published in 1993 revealed that between 1987 and 1992 pub attendance in the UK fell by 11 percent and projected a further decrease by 1997. Estimates used in the report suggested the percentage of 16 to 24 year olds taking any illegal drug doubled to nearly 30 percent between 1989 and 1992. The report concludes, 'This of course poses a significant threat to spending for such sectors as licensed drinks retailers and drink companies. Firstly, some young people are turning away from alcohol to stimulants; secondly, raves are extremely time consuming and displace much of the time and energy which might have been expended on other leisure activities like pubs or drinking at home'.100 So, at the very least, the drinks industry will welcome the moral panic over illegal drugs.

The investigative journalist Jim Carey examined the portfolios of the companies which financed the 1,500 posters showing the ecstasy victim Leah Betts and the word 'sorted'. He found links between the posters and Löwenbräu and Red Bull Energy drinks company. Red Bull is apparently gaining ground as a 'substitute for ecstasy'.101 Jim Carey also argues that the Entertainment (Increased Penalties) Act in 1990 which placed fines of up to £20,000 on the organisers of unlicensed raves was a legislative victory for the alcohol industry.

Finally, at a time when drug taking is linked to crime it is appropriate to consider that, according to the British Medical Association report Guidelines to Alcohol and Accidents published in 1989, 'alcohol was associated with 60-70 percent of homicides, 75 percent of stabbings and 50 percent of domestic assaults'.102

Issue 77 of INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM, quarterly journal of the Socialist Workers Party (Britain) Published December 1997 Copyright © International Socialism

ADDICTED TO PROFIT - CAPITALISM AND DRUGS

Audrey Farrell http://www.swp.ie/resources/Capitalism%20and%20drugs.doc