Public Health Wales.

BackgroundPublic health concerns regarding e-cigarettes and debate on appropriate regulatory responses are focusing on the need to prevent child access to these devices. However, little is currently known about the characteristics of those young people that are accessing e-cigarettes.MethodsUsing a cross-sectional survey of 14-17 year old school students in North West England (n = 16,193) we examined associations between e-cigarette access and demographics, conventional smoking behaviours, alcohol consumption, and methods of accessing cigarettes and alcohol. Access to e-cigarettes was identified through a question asking students if they had ever tried or purchased e-cigarettes.ResultsOne in five participants reported having accessed e-cigarettes (19.2%). Prevalence was highest among smokers (rising to 75.8% in those smoking >5 per day), although 15.8% of teenagers that had accessed e-cigarettes had never smoked conventional cigarettes (v.13.6% being ex-smokers). E-cigarette access was independently associated with male gender, having parents/guardians that smoke and students’ alcohol use. Compared with non-drinkers, teenagers that drank alcohol at least weekly and binge drank were more likely to have accessed e-cigarettes (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.89, P < 0.001), with this association particularly strong among never-smokers (AOR 4.59, P < 0.001). Among drinkers, e-cigarette access was related to: drinking to get drunk, alcohol-related violence, consumption of spirits; self-purchase of alcohol from shops or supermarkets; and accessing alcohol by recruiting adult proxy purchasers outside shops.ConclusionsThere is an urgent need for controls on the promotion and sale of e-cigarettes to children. Findings suggest that e-cigarettes are being accessed by teenagers more for experimentation than smoking cessation. Those most likely to access e-cigarettes may already be familiar with illicit methods of accessing age-restricted substances.

Article:Franks, Nigel R., Hardcastle, Katherine A., Collins, Sophie et al. (4 more authors) (2008) Can ant colonies choose a far-and-away better nest over an in-the-way poor one? ANIMAL Nest choice in the ant Temnothorax albipennis is a model system for investigating collective decision making. Previous research has demonstrated the sophistication of this decentralized system, yet such studies have focused on binary choices in which alternative nest sites are equidistant from the colony's original nest. In nature, for example, a poor nest might be closer than a better one. Hence, to investigate the collective decision-making system of these ants further, we challenged colonies with a choice between a distant high-quality nest and a much closer and collinear poorer one. Colonies successfully emigrated to the better nest when it was two, three or even nine times further away than the collinear poorer one. Most often, colonies started emigrating simultaneously to both nests, and then they redirected all traffic exclusively to the better, more distant one. We show that this is a good strategy for minimizing exposure and risk. In principle these ants might compensate for distance effects by increasing recruitment latencies and quorum thresholds at nearby poor nests so that they are better able to find and use distant better ones. However, the simplest explanation is that scouts are more likely to begin to look elsewhere, at all stages of the decision-making and emigration process, whenever and wherever they have initially found a low-quality nest.

BackgroundBy measuring alcohol retailers’ propensity to illegally sell alcohol to young people who appear highly intoxicated, we examine whether UK legislation is effective at preventing health harms resulting from drunk individuals continuing to access alcohol.Methods73 randomly selected pubs, bars and nightclubs in a city in North West England were subjected to an alcohol purchase test by pseudo-drunk actors. Observers recorded venue characteristics to identify poorly managed and problematic (PMP) bars.Results83.6% of purchase attempts resulted in a sale of alcohol to a pseudo-intoxicated actor. Alcohol sales increased with the number of PMP markers bars had, yet even in those with no markers, 66.7% of purchase attempts resulted in a sale. Bar servers often recognised signs of drunkenness in actors, but still served them. In 18% of alcohol sales, servers attempted to up-sell by suggesting actors purchase double rather than single vodkas.ConclusionsUK law preventing sales of alcohol to drunks is routinely broken in nightlife environments, yet prosecutions are rare. Nightlife drunkenness places enormous burdens on health and health services. Preventing alcohol sales to drunks should be a public health priority, while policy failures on issues, such as alcohol pricing, are revisited.

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