Does minimum pricing reduce alcohol consumption? The experience of a Canadian province.

Aims: Minimum alcohol prices in British Columbia have been adjusted intermittently over the past 20 years. The present study estimates impacts of these adjustments on alcohol consumption.

Design: Time-series and longitudinal models of aggregate alcohol consumption with price and other economic data as independent variables.

Courtesy stigma: a hidden health concern among front-line service providers to sex workers.

Courtesy stigma, also referred to as 'stigma by association', involves public disapproval evoked as a consequence of associating with a stigmatised individual or group. While a small number of sociological studies have shown how courtesy stigma limits the social support and social opportunities available to family members of stigmatised individuals, there is a paucity of research examining courtesy stigma among the large network of people who provide health and social services to stigmatised groups. This article presents results from a mixed methods study of the workplace experiences of a purposive sample of workers in a non-profit organisation providing services to sex workers in Canada.

Is there a 'low-risk' drinking level for youth? The risk of acute harm as a function of quantity and frequency of drinking.

Introduction And Aims: Drinking guidelines have rarely provided recommendations for different age groups despite evidence of significant age effects on alcohol consumption and related risks. This study attempted to quantify the degree of risk associated with lower levels of consumption for people under 25 years of age, with the broader purpose of informing the development of Canadian low-risk drinking guidelines.

Design And Methods: A random community-based sample of 540 youth aged 16-23 (54.

The basis for Canada's new low-risk drinking guidelines: a relative risk approach to estimating hazardous levels and patterns of alcohol use.

Issue: Low-risk drinking guidelines have been developed independently in a number of jurisdictions resulting in different sets of advice with different definitions of 'low risk'. This paper discusses some of the fundamental issues addressed by an expert advisory panel during the course of developing national guidelines for Canadians and summarises key sets of evidence that were influential.

Approach: The underlying reasoning and connection between the evidence and the guidelines is discussed in relation to: (i) how to minimise risk of long-term illnesses; (ii) how to minimise risk of short-term harms, for example injury; and (iii) alcohol use during pregnancy.

Impact on alcohol-related mortality of a rapid rise in the density of private liquor outlets in British Columbia: a local area multi-level analysis.

Aims: To study relationships between rates of alcohol-related deaths and (i) the density of liquor outlets and (ii) the proportion of liquor stores owned privately in British Columbia (BC) during a period of rapid increase in private stores.

Design: Multi-level regression analyses assessed the relationship between population rates of private liquor stores and alcohol-related mortality after adjusting for potential confounding.

Setting: The 89 local health areas of BC, Canada across a 6-year period from 2003 to 2008, for a longitudinal sample with n = 534.

The role of substance use and psychosocial characteristics in explaining unintentional injuries.

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between the use of various substances and selected psychosocial characteristics with unintentional injury. Cross-sectional data was collected from groups of subjects in treatment for a primary problem with cocaine (n=300), cannabis (n=128), alcohol (n=110), other drugs (n=35), tobacco (n=249), or gambling (n=199). Subjects completed a self-administered questionnaire that included questions on various psychosocial scales (i.

Addiction research centres and the nurturing of creativity: the Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia, Canada.

The Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia (CARBC) was established as a multi-campus and multi-disciplinary research centre administered by the University of Victoria (UVic) in late 2003. Its core funding is provided from interest payments on an endowment of CAD 10.55 million dollars.

Non-response bias in alcohol and drug population surveys.

Introduction And Aims: This proposed study was to assess non-response bias in the 2004 Canadian Addictions Survey (CAS).

Design And Methods: Two approaches were used to assess non-response bias in the CAS which had a response rate of only 47%. First, the CAS sample characteristics were compared with the 2002 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS, response rate 77%) and the 2001 Canada Census data.

Changes in per capita alcohol sales during the partial privatization of British Columbia's retail alcohol monopoly 2003-2008: a multi-level local area analysis.

Aim: To investigate the independent effects on liquor sales of an increase in (a) the density of liquor outlets and (b) the proportion of liquor stores in private rather than government ownership in British Columbia between 2003/4 and 2007/8.

Design: The British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch provided data on litres of ethanol sold through different types of outlets in 89 local health areas of the province by beverage type. Multi-level regression models were used to examine the relationship between per capita alcohol sales and outlet densities for different types of liquor outlet after adjusting for potential confounding social, economic and demographic factors as well as spatial and temporal autocorrelation.

Comparing heroin users and prescription opioid users in a Canadian multi-site population of illicit opioid users.

Introduction And Aims: Recent data suggest increasing prescription opioid and decreasing heroin use among street drug users, yet little is known on possible differential use characteristics and outcomes associated with these drugs. [While we recognise that, correctly, these populations would need to be labelled as opioid 'abusers' or 'non-medical users', we rely on the simpler terms 'use' and 'users' for the population under study within the wider context of them being engaged overall in illicit opioid use activities.] This study compared drug use, health, and socio-economic characteristics between heroin (H)-only, prescription opioid (PO)-only and mixed heroin and prescription (PO & H) users in a Canadian multi-site cohort of illicit opioid and other drug users (OPICAN).

Non-medical use of prescription opioids and public health in Canada: an urgent call for research and interventions development.

While the public health problem of psychoactive drug use is well recognized, the emerging phenomenon of non-medical use of prescription opioids has been largely ignored in Canada. Most evidence on this issue and related harms in North America to date come from the United States (US), where the prevalence of non-medical opioid use in key populations, as well as related morbidity and mortality, recently have risen substantially. Also, given the increases in the overall consumption of prescription opioids similar to those in the US, a substantial expansion of problems related to non-medical opioid use appears to be occurring in Canada.

Driving behavior under the influence of cannabis or cocaine.

Objective: The purpose of this study is first to describe perceptions of driving under the influence of cannabis or cocaine among clients in treatment and, second, to assess whether these perceptions are related to the frequency of driving under the influence of cannabis or cocaine.

Methods: A questionnaire was administered to clients in treatment for abuse of either cocaine or cannabis, many of whom also had a problem with alcohol; additional groups of clients consisted of those in smoking cessation and gambling programs (N = 1021). Open-ended and close-ended questions were used to assess self-reported effects of cannabis or cocaine on driving and frequency of driving under the influence of cannabis, cocaine, or alcohol.

Hepatitis C virus transmission among oral crack users: viral detection on crack paraphernalia.

Objective: Epidemiological studies present oral crack use as a potential independent risk factor for hepatitis C virus (HCV) status, yet actual HCV transmission pathways via crack use have not been evidenced. To this end, this exploratory study sought to detect HCV on crack-use paraphernalia used by street crack users.

Methods: Crack-use paraphernalia within 60 min of use was collected from 51 (N) street-crack users.

Heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) a decade later: a brief update on science and politics.

Since the initial Swiss heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) study conducted in the mid-1990s, several other jurisdictions in Europe and North America have implemented HAT trials. All of these studies embrace the same goal-investigating the utility of medical heroin prescribing for problematic opioid users-yet are distinct in various key details. This paper briefly reviews (initiated or completed) studies and their main parameters, including primary research objectives, design, target populations, outcome measures, current status and-where available-key results.

Illicit opioid use and its key characteristics: a select overview and evidence from a Canadian multisite cohort of illicit opioid users (OPICAN).

Objectives: To summarize key characteristics and consequences of illicit opioid use from the literature and to present corresponding data from a multisite sample of illicit opioid users in 5 Canadian cities (OPICAN study).

Method: We undertook an overview of recent literature from North America, Australia, and Europe. We obtained data from the multicity OPICAN cohort study, which consisted of an interviewer-administered questionnaire, a standardized mental health instrument (the Composite International Diagnostic Interview Short Form for depression), and saliva-antibody tests for infectious disease (that is, HIV and hepatitis C virus).

Treatment for hepatitis C virus and cannabis use in illicit drug user patients: implications and questions.

Illicit drug users are the primary risk group for HCV transmission, and will form the largest HCV treatment population for years to come. Sylvestre et al.'s study suggests that cannabis use may benefit treatment retention and outcomes in illicit drug users undergoing HCV treatment.