Alcopops: California Cracks Down on Kid-Friendly Alcohol

“Training Beers” and “Girlie Drinks” Come Under Fire

In June, the California State Assembly passed the “Alcopops Warning Label Bill,” requiring a warning label on the bubbly, sweetened, premixed alcohol drinks sold in mini-marts and gas stations and often indistinguishable from soda and juice drinks.

Critics say that the beverages, which contain 5 to 8 % alcohol and are currently taxed as beer in California, are designed and labeled specifically to attract underage drinkers. The State Senate is currently considering the bill. Several states have already reclassified the drinks.

In “The Cost of Alcopops to Youth and California,” the Marin Institute, a California-based alcohol industry watchdog, claims that fruit-flavored alcopops “fuel the underage drinking epidemic by serving as a transition or bridge from soft drinks to alcohol, especially for youth. The alcohol flavor is masked by sweeteners and young people report drinking alcopops because they are easier to conceal and ‘go down easy.’” According to a high school student quoted in the New York Times, Smirnoff Ice “tasted like a Sprite with a splash of 7-Up.” Other products in the alcopop line include Bacardi Silver, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

The primary argument is that the beverages contain distilled spirits, yet are sold, advertised, and taxed as beer. The Marin Institute, the prime mover in the attempt to reclassify the beverages as hard liquor for tax purposes, scoffs at the liquor industry’s insistence that such products are “flavored malt beverages.” According to the Institute, “How else could these corporations explain why in the U.K. and elsewhere, alcopop products such as Smirnoff Ice are marketed as containing vodka, while the exact same brands in the U.S. are instead called “malt beverages?”

Reclassifying the beverages would cost the liquor industry dearly. Currently in California, beer is subject to a state tax of 20 cents per gallon. In contrast, distilled spirits are hit with a tax of $3.30 per gallon. At least five European countries—Germany, the U.K., Switzerland, Denmark and France—have boosted taxes on alcopop products. In Germany, for example, taxes on alcopop products are 16 times higher than in most American states. (The U.S. has the second-lowest alcohol prices in the world, after Luxembourg, says the Marin Institute.) After the U.K. raised taxes on the products in 2002, consumption fell by more than 40%. Germany saw an even more dramatic decline as alcopops became expensive, with no accompanying increase in sales of other alcohol products.

The original alcopop was the wine cooler of the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s, the emphasis switched from wine to beer bases with alcohol-containing flavorings, producing the so-called “hard” lemonades and teas now available.

The Department of Health and Human Services estimates than more than 10 million Americans under the age of 21 drink alcohol.

Sources:

--Rosen, Simon and Simon, Michele. “The Cost of Alcopops to Youth and California. The Marin Institute. July 2007. http://www.marininstitute.org/alcopops/index.htm

--Marshall, Carolyn. “Drinks With Youth Appeal Draw Growing Opposition.” New York Times. April 13, 2007.”

--“Alcopop market showing FAB-ulous growth.” Food&DrinkEurope.com. 02/04/2003.

http://www.foodanddrinkeurope.com/news/ng.asp?id=17291

Media Suffers Attack of Cannabis Psychosis

Bad Science Makes for Bad Science Journalism

According to the London Daily Mail, smoking a single joint of marijuana increases your risk of developing schizophrenia by 41 per cent. The Mail quoted Professor Robin Murray of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, who dutifully warned that the risk was perhaps even higher than that, due to the increasing use of what the newspaper termed “powerful skunk cannabis.” The skunk effect, said Murray, meant that the study’s estimate that “14 per cent of cases of schizophrenia in the UK are due to cannabis is now probably an understatement.”

Marjorie Wallace of the mental health charity SANE told BBC News: “The headlines are not scaremongering, but reflect a daily, and preventable, tragedy.”

Wow. As Gertrude Stein once put it, “Interesting if true.”

But it’s not true at all, of course. Or, to put it more accurately: If it were true, there is no way in hell the meta study under question could be used to prove it.

Speaking as a science journalist, this is the sort of thing than can really ruin your day.

As always, it helps to start with the original published article, a meta-analysis published in the British medical journal Lancet under the title, “Cannabis use and risk of psychotic or affective mental health outcomes: a systematic review.” 2007 370: 319-28. Mark Hoofnagle, a MD/PhD Candidate in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia, discussed the paper in depth on his Denialism Blog:

“First of all, the statement that ‘just one joint’ increases risk by 41% is absurd. The study here is of those who have tried marijuana once or more, not of people who have only tried it once. So already, the Daily Mail and every other news organization is way off. Second, I think we're ultimately seeing a post-hoc ergo propter hoc argument, and a dose-response that's more characteristic of the population studied than a real pharmacologic effect.”

Here’s why:

--People who suffer from a mental illness do more drugs than “normal” people. They are a high-risk population when it comes to addiction. There are people who have a propensity for addiction, and people who do not. Many of those who do will get hooked, but this does not mean that everything which follows is a result of the drugs.

--Latent schizophrenics often suffer their first break while under the influence of psychoactive drugs. Pot, along with LSD, physical trauma, the death of a loved one, and other intense emotional events can all trigger a schizophrenic break in late adolescence. So naturally there would be a correlation.

--The assumption that pot causes susceptibility to mental illness, rather than the other way around, can’t be proven. Hoofnagle uses the example of cigarette smoking. Anyone who has researched schizophrenia, or been around schizophrenics, knows that almost all schizophrenics smoke. (It helps quell hallucinations). Most of them began to smoke before the onset of their illness. Using the assumptions of the current study, we could say that cigarette smoking is almost certain to cause schizophrenia. Correlation, as Hoofnagle reminds us, is not causation.

--Daily pot smokers confound such a study. Are some of them exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia, or are they exhibiting the symptoms of chronic marijuana intoxication? If they quit smoking so much, would they stop acting so crazy?

--Comorbidity is exceedingly common in drug addicts and users. There is a well-documented causal connection between depression and the use of psychoactive drugs. People suffering from depression often resort to cannabis and other drugs as a form of self-medication. Again, the mental condition leads to the drug use, and not the other way around.

--Finally, where is the epidemic of schizophrenia caused by millions of people smoking marijuana for years? What field evidence can be drawn upon to support this remarkable conclusion?

To be fair to the authors, bets are hedged. In their conclusion, Moore, et.al. state: “The possibility that this association results from confounding factors or bias cannot be ruled out, and these uncertainties are unlikely to be resolved in the near future.”

Nevertheless, the authors go on to conclude that “We believe that there is now enough evidence to inform people that using cannabis could increase their risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life.”

At www.badscience.net, Ben Goldacre wryly notes that “You know when cannabis hits the news you’re in for a bit of fun…” Of 175 studies identified as potentially relevant, Goldacre maintains that only 11 papers, describing 7 discrete data sets, actually turned to be relevant for purposes of the study. If every assumption in the paper is taken to be correct, and causality is accepted, Goldacre calculated, about 800 cases of schizophrenia per year could be attributed to marijuana in the U.K. “But what’s really important,” Goldacre writes, “is what you do with this data. Firstly you can misrepresent it….not least of all with the ridiculous ‘modern cannabis is 25 times stronger’ fabrication so beloved by the media and politicians.”

As it happens, all of this comes at a time in Britain when efforts to reclassify cannabis are being hotly debated in the government. As propaganda, the report is useful, but as a means of clarifying the debate, it will only produce confusion and demagoguery.

Sources:

--Moore, Theresa H.M., et. Al. “Cannabis use and risk of psychotic or affective mental health outcomes: a systematic review.” Lancet. 2007 370: 319-28 http://www.thelancet.com/

--MacCrae, Fiona and Andrews, Emily. “Smoking just one cannabis joint raises danger of mental illness by 40%.” London Daily Mail. 26/07/07

--“Cannabis ‘raises psychosis risk.’” BBC News. 2007/07/27 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6917003.stm

--Cressey, Daniel. “Medical opinion comes full circle on cannabis dangers.” Nature. 27 July 2007.

--Hoofnagle, Mark. “Does Smoking Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?” Denialism Blog. July 30, 2007. http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/07/does_smoking_cannabis_cause_sc.php

medical marijuana

Minister Says Marijuana is a Sacrament

That’s Reverend Stoner to you, brother

Nice try, Craig X. Rubin. But the California courts aren’t buying it. Ministers, mail-order or otherwise, are unlikely to merit federal protection for the use of pot as a church sacrament.

Ordained, as were so many of us, as a minister of the Universal Life Church, and thereby licensed to perform legal weddings and, in days gone by, to attempt conscientious objector status in military matters, Rubin was charged with possession with attempt to sell. The leader of the 420 Temple faces up to seven years in prison for dealing.

The 41 year-old Rubin has no legal experience but is representing himself in the case. Not much is known about his court strategy, but a two-pronged defense appeared to be emerging: Rubin will argue that marijuana is the “tree of life” mentioned in the Bible (if not in the movie, “The Fountain,”) and that an officer held a shotgun to his head during the arrest. He is not contesting the allegation of possessing pot, which he said the churches uses as a sacrament during services. He is currently free on $20,000 bail.

Rubin spent last weekend preparing for jury selection by consulting with Native American elders in as sweat lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. This may not be as crazy as it sounds, as tribes in the West have accumulated considerable legal expertise in these matters due to the use of peyote in Native American Church rituals.

“He is as good as I’ve seen any defendant representing himself,” said Michael Levinsohn of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

In the event, Superior Court Judge Mary H. Strobel neatly side-stepped the federal issues at hand, ruling that the Reverent Rubin could not use federal statutes as a defense against state drug charges.

Sources:

--Glazer, Andrew. “Minister cites religious protection in marijuana defense.” Associated Press Newswire, 07/24/2007

--“Minister: Marijuana is a sacrament.” Focus on Faith, MSNBC.com. July 26, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com

A View From the Other Side: What Disease?

A psychiatrist takes issue with the semantics of addictive disease in SLATE.

See "Medical Misnomer: Addiction isn't a brain disease, Congress."
By Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld

Food Addiction

Carbohydrates on the Brain, Food Rehab in the Future

Earlier this month, Yale University hosted the first-ever conference on Food and Addiction. Dr. Nora Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse told the collection of experts on nutrition, obesity and drug addiction that “commonalities in the brain’s reward mechanisms” linked compulsive eating with addictive drug use. “Impaired function of the brain dopamine system could make some people more vulnerable to compulsive eating,” Volkow said.

Moreover, animal studies and brain imaging research in humans strongly support the notion of food addiction. In particular, research has pointed toward a form of food addiction known as “carbohydrate-craving obesity.” Dr. Mark Gold, chief of addiction studies at the McKnight Institute at the University of Florida, and a well-known authority on cocaine abuse, argued that “failed diets and attempts to control overeating, preoccupation with food and eating, shame, anger, and guilt look like traditional addictions.”

Conference organizer Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, conceded that “it wasn’t obesity experts who got interested in addiction, it was the addiction scientists who got interested in food.” Brownell suggested that psychologists have been slower to grasp the import of food addiction “in part because of a bias that obesity is all about failure and personal responsibility, so why look at biology?”

As Dr. Gold summed it up, “It turns out that food and drugs compete for the same reward system in the brain.”

SOURCES:

--“Yale Hosts Historic Conference on Food and Addiction.” Yale University Office of Public Affairs. July 9, 2007. http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/07-07-09-01.all.html

--Hellmich, Nancy. “Does food ‘addiction’ explain explosion of obesity?” USA Today, July 9, 2007.

--“Yale Hosts Historic Conference on Food Addiction.” Medical News Today. 11 July 2007. www.medicalnewstoday.com

--Hathaway, William. “Experts Chew Over Eating as Addiction.” The Hartford Courant. July 11, 2007. http://www.courant.com/news/health

What's Wrong With This Picture?

A bit of cognitive dissonance, perhaps?

The situation could easily be reversed, but cigarette manufacturers mostly advertise in magazines, not newspapers. Otherwise, we might be reading about the dangers of consuming too much alcohol in casinos, while looking at an ad for a new brand of cigarettes.

European Tree Yields New Alcoholism Treatment in Early Tests

Anti-Smoking Drug Also Curbs Alcohol Craving

A drug approved last year for smoking cessation has also shown promise for use against alcoholism, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), announced yesterday.

Varenicline, currently marketed by Pfizer for smoking cessation under the trade name Chantix, dramatically curbed drinking in alcohol-preferring rats, according to the study, which will be published online this week by “The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

The synthetic drug was modeled after a cytosine compound from the European Labumum tree, combined with an alkaloid from the poppy plant.

Since an estimated 85 per cent of alcoholics are also cigarette smokers, varenicline could have an immediate effect on this common dual addiction. The drug has already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for human use, so Pfizer is likely to be granted a speedy approval for the new indication, sources say. The drug is likely to join Antabuse (disulfiram), Revia (naltrexone), and Campral (acamprosate) as FDA-approved treatments for alcoholism.

Selena Bartlett of the UCSF-affiliated Gallo Clinic and Research Center, a co-author of the study, said that the drug works by disrupting the neuronal “reward pathway” of the brain. Specifically, the drug binds to acetylcholine receptors, a neurotransmitter involved in arousal and attention. Through a cascade effect, stimulating these receptors causes a release of dopamine, one of the primary pleasure chemicals in the brain. Varenicline prevents alcohol and nicotine from causing a release of dopamine at those sites.

“Treatments for alcoholism today are like those for schizophrenia in the ‘60s,” Bartlett said. “People don’t talk about it. There are very few treatments, and most drug companies are not interested in it.”

Bartlett said she hoped the research would spur additional studies of drugs for alcoholism. “It’s a disease. If you’ve inherited a gene variant, of if some other cause leads you to alcohol dependence, it should be treated--like any disease.”

Sources:

“Drug to curb smoking also cuts alcohol dependence.” University of California, San Francisco, News Office. 09 July 2007. http://pub.ucsf.edu/newsservices/releases/200707063/

“Need a Cigarette and a Cocktail? Just Pop a Pill Instead.” ScientificAmerican.com July 09, 2007