Dana McCauley
June 5, 2019
The Age
Public health advocates have demanded a crackdown on alcohol delivery services to tackle Australia’s rising suicide rate, citing a link between drinking and self harm.
In a submission to the Productivity Commission review into mental health, the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education called on the commission to “explicitly recognise the role of alcohol in suicide” and back restrictions on late night and online sales.
Hundreds of online retailers have made a trip to the bottle-o unnecessary.
Hundreds of online retailers have made a trip to the bottle-o unnecessary. CREDIT:CAROLYN KASTER
“The prevalence of alcohol in attempted and actual suicides is extraordinary,” FARE chief executive Michael Thorn told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, citing research showing that alcohol was present in 40.6 per cent of completed suicides, homicides or sudden deaths in NSW.
He said a proliferation of online alcohol vendors delivering booze within 30 minutes had exacerbated the problem, with little to no oversight of whether the person placing the order was intoxicated or suffering from a mental health crisis.
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Tony Gill, an addiction medicine specialist at St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney, said there was “absolutely no doubt that alcohol abuse is associated with suicide” and that online sales were a problem.
“We’ve seen patients at St Vincent’s who are hardly able to walk, but they can order alcohol. It’s really terrible,” he said.
Dr Gill said alcohol could make people with suicidal ideation “more likely to act” on those thoughts, as it repressed inhibitions, and that problem drinkers were prone to negative self-perception.
But he said many Australians failed to recognise the seriousness of alcohol-related harm.
“Whenever you increase the availability of a drug like alcohol then you’re going to get more problems associated with it.”
FARE last year surveyed Australian drinkers and found that 30 per cent had used alcohol delivery services, with one in four doing so weekly or more often.
“Regulators haven’t caught up,” Mr Thorn said.
He called on Health Minister Greg Hunt to take leadership on the issue, which requires the cooperation of the states as they have responsibility for regulating alcohol sales.
And he urged the minister to finalise the National Alcohol Strategy, which stalled last year after the alcohol industry objected to a proposal to raise the price of beer and wine.
Mr Hunt has pledged to tackle youth suicide in his second term in the health portfolio.
A spokeswoman said he recognised that alcohol and drug abuse were “a significant part of the problem”.
“We will work with the states as matter of priority on completing the National Alcohol Strategy,” the spokeswoman said.
Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone, who joined Mr Hunt’s mental health roundtable meeting on Tuesday, said alcohol sales must be properly regulated whether online or offline.
“We’ve got a cultural problem,” Dr Bartone said. “There’s a culture in the community that you can’t enjoy yourself unless you’re drinking.”
The AMA and FARE want a volumetric tax on alcohol, with the funds raised to be ploughed into harm reduction initiatives.
Alcohol Beverages Australia spokeswoman Kerri Osborne said the issues affecting suicide were “complex” and included biological, psychological, social and environmental factors.
“ABA would support addressing the underlying complex issues affecting suicide by focusing on the community and its needs in a targeted way to improve outcomes for specific people,” Ms Osborne said.
The ABA supports harm prevention through education but opposes calls to increase taxes on alcohol.
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