ALCOHOL RELATED ISSUES

Based on
- the lectures and materials of conference "The Hungarian alcohol policy in focus" on 13 february 2007
- "Blue book" of Dr. Prof. Béla Buda President of National Addictological Institute (Our alcoholpolicy 2006)
- European Strategy on alcohol-related harm (SOC/257) European Economic and Social Committee,27 February 2007

The alcohol is a "no ordinary commodity" so it requires specific attention and regulation. The alcohol industry in not a homogeneous one, so an alcohol policy can have winners and loosers.
It concerns a huge number of people so it has a special importance
Due to tha fact that it has excise tax content it should be handled this way too

The physicians and ministerial-parlamentary stakeholders summarized the main alcohol related issues in Hungary, as follows:

1. Excessive alcohol consumption -alcoholism
2. Driving under alcohol influence
3. Under aged drinking,children and pregnant women
4. Alcohol consumption on working place
5. Products in black market may negatively influence the health

To be able to handle successfully the alcohol-related harms it is advisable to have a closer look into:

- Stable financial resources (part of excise tax should be oriented towards this direction) .
- Social and prevention-type subsidies of endangered families .
- Active information-flow especially to the young generation
- Education in school has a great importance
- Restriction of designer drinks-especially towards young
- The acceptance and control of zero BAC is disputable
- The (alcohol) Regulation of on- and off- trade should be controlled
- Restrictions of some marketing elements and sponsoring
- Goal oriented programs in working places
- Fight against the black market
- Differenciated excise tax(wine and beer lower)
- Servers trainig
- -Warning labels in alcohol products

European strategy on alcohool related harm summarizes:

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) welcomes the Communication from the Commission on an EU strategy to support Member States in reducing alcohol related harm.

EESC outlines priority themes as follows:

- Protecting children : children are particulary vulnerable to harms caused by alcohol.
- Reducing alcohol related road trafic accidents : EESC welcomes the specific target set out for reducing road traffic accidents, with a goal to halve the number of people killed on European roads from 50,000 to 25,000 within a ten year period (2000-2010)
- Prevent alcohol related harm among adults and in the workplace
- Information,education and raising awareness are key elements

HAFRAC PRIORITIES

The activities of the association had been focussed on the "Don't drink and drive " area by organising and implementing the Designated Drivers program. For the sake of the most effective use of our resources, the members decided to further build on this concept and continue the campaigne with stronger communication.The experts and stakeholders confirmed that the issue of alcohol related road accidents is still very high on the agenda both at local and European level, therefore our approach is consistent with the overall Europen strategy.
The Designated Driver's / Bulisofõr / program will remain our top priority for the upcoming calendar year of 2007. As the education and raising awareness are key elements of the social responsibility programs, we will dedicate more resources for enhancing the communication.
We are also co-operating with EFRD in case of other programs, such as the "Responsible Server's" initiative to ensure the necessary local experience and support.

One of our key tasks is to represent the industry in front of the authorities, the health organisations and the other decision makers in order to develop a working partnership with them. Therefore we will maintain the regular pro-active communication with these bodies and people to provide them with the necessary information about our goals, strategies and the SR initiatives

The priorities for our organisation will be regularly reviewed and discussed with the member companies, they will be reflecting the evolving needs of our local and European environment.

Short summary of our new program