Marin Institute Turns Focus to NY

The Marin Institute has weighed in on the Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) law study currently being undertaken by the New York State Law Revision Commission.  The MI recommendations are fittingly focused on public health and public safety and are a welcome counterweight to the considerable influence alcohol industry lobbyists have in Albany.  Alcohol industry designs for deregulatory “modernization” are, in actuality, retrograde in that they ignore the last 35 years of public health research (Edwards, et al. 1994; Babor, et al. 2003; Anderson, et al. 2009).

Why does it matter? As NHTSA reports, “policy makers, law enforcement officials, researchers, and community advocates need to have a clear understanding of the importance of alcohol beverage control agencies to public health efforts to prevent alcohol-related problems” (NHTSA, 2005, p. 10).

References:

Anderson, P., Chisholm, D., & Fuhr, D.C. (2009). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of policies and programmes to reduce the harm caused by alcohol. Lancet, 373(9682), 2234-2246.

Babor, T.F., Caetano, R., Casswell, S., Edwards, E., Giesbrecht, N., Graham, K. et al. (2003) Alcohol and public policy: No ordinary commodity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Edwards, G., Anderson, P.  Babor, T.F., Casswell, S., Ferrence, R., Giesbrecht, N. et al. (1994). Alcohol policy and the public good.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

National Highway Traffic & Safety Administration (2005).  The role of alcohol beverage control agencies in the enforcement and adjudication of alcohol laws [research report].  Retrieved on August 24, 2009, from http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/enforce/ABCRoleWeb/images/ABCFinal.pdf.