To better prove their theory, researchers looked at numbers from British Columbia. This Canadian province, unlike the United States, has governmental control on the cost of alcohol. A minimal price for alcohol is set by the government which then keeps track of the sales.

Between 1989 and 2010, they found that every time the minimum price went up 10 cents, people consumed less alcohol, about 3.4 drinks less to be exact. Liquor consumption dropped by nearly seven percent, wine by about nine percent, sodas and ciders with alcohol fell more than 13 percent and beer just more than one percent.

Dr. Tim Baimi, who was not involved in the study but studies alcohol control policies, says the findings are important and the effectiveness could be the turning point in some countries to curb drinking. Public health implications like alcohol-related car accidents and disease are just a few of the reasons to rein in excessive drinking, according to one of the researchers, Tim Stockwell.

While the results don’t emphatically prove that a rise in the minimum price for alcohol can eliminate drinking, they do shed some light on the subject. Scotland has already announced that it plans to increase the minimal cost per drink and England is considering following suit. The U.S. does not have any form of this policy in place.

Because the cost of alcohol in the U.S. has not evolved with inflation and cost of living increases, the study poses the question as to whether the country might benefit from such action by the government.

A new study has explored how patterns of drinking behavior, including quantities and timing of the alcohol exposure can affect the development of physical features in the baby. Common manifestations of FAS in physical features include thin vermillion border, microephaly and deficiencies in weight and height development.

The study’s findings appear in the April edition of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently published online. The study is the first to address two problems found in previous studies: the limitations of recall bias and the subjectivity of identifying physical features when alcohol use by the mother is suspected.

The study collected information from the women during pregnancy before the women were aware that they were pregnant. The information was gathered using trained counselors who had developed a rapport with the participants and ensured confidentiality during the entire process. The counselors gathered data about timing in dosage, gestation and patterns of drinking.

To combat the second challenge in avoiding subjectivity in identifying physical features, the study conducted the examinations for the physical features of FAS within a larger study of approximately 70 points of interest, one of which was alcohol use.

While similar studies have been conducted on animal models, it is difficult to determine whether the same results would be replicated in humans or not. The study was led by Haruna Sawada Feldman, a post-doctoral student in the department of pediatrics under the direction of professor Christina Chambers at the University of California, San Diego.

The researchers gathered data related to 992 women and their infants between 1978 and 2005, analyzing alcohol consumption patterns and timing of consumption in connection with certain features connected with FAS. The alcohol consumption was examined using measures of drinks per day, maximum number of drinks and the number of heavy drinking episodes.

The research team discovered that higher levels of prenatal alcohol exposure were associated with a higher risk of a child born with decreased birth length or weight. The strongest association was during the second half of the first trimester. For each drink increased in the average daily consumption, there was an increased risk for various physical defects. Drinking at these levels during pregnancy can lead to a variety of problems for the unborn child.

The new app works from a smartphone allowing iPhone users to have easy access wherever they may be. According to a recent Yahoo article, intoxicheck will give drinkers a reality check on how much they’ve really consumed by performing a series of judgment, memory and reaction challenges before drinking to establish a sober baseline performance.

Innocorp hopes the app will lead people choose a designated driver or even take a taxi instead of making a poor choice and driving while under the influence. The app compares the results taken before and after drinking and will be valuable in helping those who drink to make the best choice based on their impairment level.

With the help of intoxicheck, it is not necessary to keep track of your alcohol consumption or try to estimate the alcohol content of each drink since the app does the work for you. A spokesperson for the company said the new iPhone app did provide a reasonable and accurate assessment regarding impairment levels.

Law enforcement, military safety officials and other highway safety personnel have been using Innocorp products since their first Fatal Vision goggles came out to view impairment and to also be used on campuses and universities for alcohol prevention programs.

New Year’s Eve plans are associated with celebration, but for young drivers, it is also often a time for tragic decisions to drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A 2011 study commissioned by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) sought to understand the decisions made by teens on the holiday.

The study’s results showed that teens perceive New Year’s Eve as the most dangerous night of the year to drive. However, the respondents also indicated that the holiday is also the time when teens most often drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The study involved approximately 2,300 juniors and seniors in high school. The researchers asked the teens to report on danger levels for certain events and how likely teens are to drive at those times. One of the events examined in the analysis was New Year’s Eve, which ranked first on both measures.

The study also had good news for teens and their parents. When asked if they would stop driving due to alcohol consumption if asked by their passenger, 94 percent of respondents said that they would respect the request and hand over their keys. When it came to driving after using marijuana, 90 percent said they would not drive if their passenger asked them.

The results showed that teens were more likely to ask their driver to reconsider if the driver was under the influence of alcohol, when compared to drivers under the influence of marijuana. In addition, the study found that females were more likely than males to speak up against either driving following alcohol use or marijuana use.

SADD Senior Advisor for Policy, Research and Education, Stephen Wallace, explains that the information gathered by the study needs to be communicated often to teens. Teens need to know that if they have concerns about their friends’ decision to drive, they need to express them. It’s likely that their action will be effective.

Liberty Mutual also encourages parents to get involved with their teen in planning how they will handle such situations. Parents who discuss clear rules with their child about alcohol consumption and how to handle a scenario in which a driver is making a poor decision to operate a vehicle tend to be effective.

State ranks were chosen by using specific criteria to judge whether they were successful in eliminating drunk driving in their state. States scored the highest that required ignition interlocks be installed for convicted dui drivers, revoked licenses for driving while intoxicated, conducted periodic sobriety check-points, participated in "no-refusal" challenges to determine whether someone was driving while intoxicated, and administered greater penalties to the drunk driver if a child was traveling in their vehicle with them.

MADD President, Jan Withers, sees progress from the reports but also sees that, across the nation, there is still much education and penalization that needs to be done. The U.S. Department of Transportation teams up with MADD in the fight against drunk driving. Ray LaHood, of the Transportation Department reports that drivers are killed more often on America’s roads by a drunk driver than by any other cause. Approximately 11,000 people are killed by drunk drivers each year.

Drunk driving is not only costly by taking so many lives, but it also costs Americans billions of dollars each year. According to the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), the costs of those driving drunk are more than $132 billion a year. Almost half of the costs are monetary, while the rest are related to quality-of-life issues from those whose lives will never be the same after being hit by a drunk driver. The money trickles down from the $4.5 billion that federal governments pay, to the $3.2 billion that local and state governments pay, and to the $10.7 billion that employers pay for accidents that happen in work vehicles and for the employee’s insurance.

MADD is encouraged with the upward strides in their Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving. Statistics showed that more states are using sobriety checkpoints to stop drunk drivers in their tracks. They are gaining more support for drunken driving awareness campaigns nationwide. Since their campaign began in 2006, the use of ignition interlocks has more than doubled. And, their DADSS, or Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety program is working on an eight-to-ten-year plan to deliver a program for vehicles that would disable the vehicle if a person with a .08 blood alcohol concentration strength, or more tried to drive it. The national report gives MADD, and all drivers, hope-a look on the bright side of the road.

Chronic drinking is linked to brain abnormalities in function, metabolism and structure and a consequence of these deficits is destruction in motor functioning. The study used fMRI to test a finger exercise and discovered that the cerebellum and frontal lobe activities were not as incorporated in the brains of the alcoholic, according to the study. Research assistant professor of Radiology & Radiological Sciences, Dr. Baxter Rogers, said the relationship between the two brain parts was weaker in alcoholics even up to a week after they’d stopped drinking.

Rogers and his colleagues used the fMRI method to examine the brain because it measures brain functions in a non-invasive and painless way and can identify specific regions of the brain that are involved in carrying out tasks and that are affected by disease. They examined alcoholic patients after an abstinence of five to seven days and after withdrawal signs were not present anymore and also examined healthy patients who were not alcoholics.

The results showed that alcoholics can produce the same amount of finger taps as the non-alcoholics but they had to use different parts of their brain to do so. Rogers says it suggests alcoholics must compensate for the injury to their brain and need to expend more amounts of energy or at least use a different response in their brain to provide the same normal outcome.

These types of studies will help us to better understand how alcoholics brain circuits are rewired because of their disease and we hope to one day have new approaches to healing and rehabilitating them because of their brain dysfunctions, said Vanderbilt researchers.

The SCRAM bracelet or Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor is a device that is worn around the ankle. It has been carefully designed to monitor those who choose to drink and drive while they are under a judge’s orders not to do so. The bracelet measures alcohol quantity in a qualitative manner and is able to send reports on those measurements to authorities.

Approximately 1 percent of all alcohol that is consumed will release from the body through sweat and perspiration. By detecting ethanol that is produced in sweat, the bracelet can detect the amount of alcohol the person has drunk. The bracelets are also set up to monitor alcohols that may be irrelevant, such as methyl, isopropyl or acetaldehydes. It shows if the individual consumed small, medium or large amounts of alcohol.

But how does the SCRAM bracelet alert the authorities? The bracelet works wirelessly with a modem that is located in the home of the monitored person. Every day the offender must place themselves within 30 feet of the modem so the information is transferred from the bracelet to those monitoring the bracelet. If the person fails to do this, they could be taken back into custody, as it would be considered a breach of contract.

The bracelet is made so that once it is placed on the ankle of the offender, there is no way to take the bracelet off. If it is tampered with or even slides up and down the ankle, an infrared sensor can immediately alert the authorities.

While the SCRAM bracelet may seem like a great idea, it is important to note that there can be a problem with the accuracy of its reports. Since the bracelet only has to sync with the modem once a day, there is a chance the offender could work around the schedule. As the SCRAM bracelet is introduced across the country, more research will be needed to determine its effectiveness in reducing the number of drunk driving incidences.

A 2008 study examined the co-occurrence of other disorders in repeat DUI offenders (McMillan et al., 2008). The researchers recruited 233 individuals required to seek mandatory treatment for alcohol disorders at one of seven licensed treatment programs. All of the participants were repeat DUI offenders.

The participants were assessed using a combination of measurement tools, including the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), which tests for a number of mental health disorders, and the Treatment Abstraction Form, which consists of data obtained from treatment charts of DUI offenders required to attend mandatory alcohol treatment. The treatment charts include information about other types of substance use and records of any psychiatric diagnoses made during treatment.

The analysis revealed that 68.4 percent of participants who had depression, 100 percent of those who had obsessive-compulsive disorder, and 92.9 percent of those who had bipolar disorder were not diagnosed for these disorders while undergoing treatment for alcohol-related problems.

The findings are limited due to several circumstances. The CIDI is considered to be a reliable measurement tool for identifying mental health disorders when used for a general population. Its use among repeat DUI offenders, however, has not been validated. In addition, the CIDI was used before the individuals were admitted for treatment and did not include observations and assessments made during alcohol treatment.

The use of the CIDI may not be valid for this particular study because it may be that the records for each patient were not maintained at a level necessary to accurately record the diagnoses by doctors. The diagnosis may have been correct at the time, but not recorded properly.

The study’s findings reveal a significant gap in diagnosing mental health disorders among those who have repeat DUI offenses. While there is often a screening conducted for other types of substance abuse when an individual has a record of DUI offenses, it may be equally important to assess the possible impact of other mental disorders.

The absence of evaluation for other mental disorders may prevent the identification of a problem that contributes to relapse. In order to help these individuals avoid future problems with driving under the influence and protect the safety of the general population, it is important to evaluate repeat offenders for possible co-morbidity.

The article, referenced in The Chart by CNN Health, said these episodes hit a high in 2006 and then decreased by nearly one-third through 2010. Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, CDC Director, stated that these drivers put everyone at risk on the road and that almost 11,000 individuals are killed each year in car crashes involving alcohol.

Episodes were defined as drivers with blood alcohol content of a minimum 0.08 percent, which equals approximately four drinks per hour for a 160-pound man or three drinks every two hours for a 120-pound female. The researchers also found people who didn’t always wear their seatbelts were almost four times more likely to report the incident as those people who wore them every time.

Frieden commented that drunk driving has a far-reaching impact as a public health dilemma and alcohol-impaired drivers are much too common on our roads. This problem puts everyone in harm’s way, including responsible drivers. The CDC recommends using sobriety checkpoints as well as devices such as ignition interlocks that prevent offenders who have already committed crimes from drinking and then driving.

Researchers are aware that people are not honest about the amount they drink and consequently they surely underestimate the amounts reported when they do drink and drive, Frieden notes.

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