Drinking Patterns and Perspectives on Alcohol Policy: Results From Two Ontario Surveys

Abstract

Whether it is intentional or not, government policies that tend to make alcohol more available cater to young, heavy-drinking males who possibly experience problems in connection with their drinking behaviour.

Predicting attitudes toward a restrictive alcohol policy: Using a model of distal and proximal predictors.

“…Consistent with previous studies, we found that support for restrictive measures decreased with increased consumption and increased with age, and that it was stronger among women than among men (e.g., Giesbrecht et al, 2005;Greenfield et al, 2007b;van der Sar et al, 2012). The finding indicating that support increased with level of education, is consistent with results from a recent study in Sweden (Holmberg & Weibull, 2013), but deviates from other studies (e.g., van der Sar et al, 2012;Wilkinson et al, 2009).…”

“…Accordingly, previous studies have repeatedly shown that support for such restrictions decreases with increasing consumption (e.g., Giesbrecht, Ialomiteanu, & Anglin, 2005;Greenfield et al, 2007b;van der Sar et al, 2012).…”

The opinion of adolescents and adults on Dutch restrictive and educational alcohol policy measures

“…Alcohol consumption seems to impact the opinion on restrictive availability measures of the 16-22-year negatively olds and appears to be the strongest predictor. This is in line with Giesbrecht et al and Giesbrecht and Greenfield [8,10] who found that the drinking pattern predicts views on some alcohol-related policy topics and showed that, in particular, the level of consumption has the greatest explanatory power among an adult population. According to the respondents who never drink alcohol and served as a reference group, drinkers are more negative towards restrictive availability measures than non-users.…”

“…all drinkers, are affected when these measures are introduced [3]. This assumption is in line with findings of Giesbrecht et al [10] and Giesbrecht and Greenfield [8] who found that the drinking pattern predicts views on some alcohol-related policy topics. This study underlines these conclusions.…”

“…price increase, lower BAC limit for young drivers, increasing minimum drinking age [5]. However, factors that were previously found and were positively associated with the adult public opinion on restrictive alcohol policy measures were female sex [9][10][11], low own alcohol use [8][9][10]12], and greater age [8,9]. Knowing that greater age influences opinion, it would be of interest to study the differences between the opinion of adolescents and the opinion of adults on alcohol policy measures.…”