Hard facts to swallow

• Alcohol abuse costs NSW $7 million each day ($2.5 billion in a year).

• The NSW Police Force spends at least $50 million a year responding to alcohol-related crime.

• More than 5,000 deaths per annum in Australia are attributed to alcohol, second only to tobacco as a preventable cause of death and hospitalisation.

• One-third of injured patients attending St Vincent’s Hospital Emergency Department have consumed alcohol prior to incurring their injury and almost two-thirds of these patients have been drinking at licensed premises.

• 23.8 percent of girls aged 14–19 years are drinking alcohol at levels that are putting themselves at risk of harm.

• Alcohol was involved in 41 percent of incidents of physical violence and 38 percent of sexual assaults experienced by women; younger women and Aboriginal women are most at risk of such violence.

• 12 percent of suicides, 16 percent of child abuse cases, 44 percent of fire injuries, and 34 percent of falls and drowning are associated with alcohol consumption.

• Alcohol is identified as a factor in about 18 percent of all fatal crashes in NSW, but the figure is 27 percent in country areas.

• More than 75 percent of male inmates imprisoned for assault offences were affected by alcohol at the time of the offence.

• 75 percent of street incidents attended by police in six eastern Sydney patrols involved alcohol and 60 percent of these occurred near licensed premises.

• The proportion of both male and female drinkers reporting heavy drinking days was highest in the 16 to 24 years age group.

• Department of Family and Community Services case workers estimate that between 75 to 90 percent of their cases involved problematic alcohol or drug misuse.

• The most frequent response by staff (in licensed premises) to intoxication was to continue to serve alcohol.

References:

National Drug Strategy Health Survey 2007: www.aihw.gov.au/publications

NSW Health: www.alcoholinfo.nsw.gov.au