Thursday 2nd July 2009
The head of New Zealand's National Addiction Centre, Professor Doug Sellman, will tour the country for three months in a campaign aimed at tightening controls on alcohol.
Dr Sellman, 53, a psychiatrist who has been the centre's director since it was set up at the Christchurch Medical School in 1996, says the country faced a "national alcohol crisis" fuelling violent crime, early death and three-quarters of adult weekend admissions to hospital emergency departments.
He has been granted three months' sabbatical to promote a five-point "five-plus solution" at 32 public meetings from September to November stretching from a marae at Doubtless Bay down to Invercargill.
The five points - all also raised recently by Law Commission president Sir Geoffrey Palmer - include higher taxes, raising the drinking age, restricting liquor outlets and opening hours, regulating marketing, and tighter drink-driving limits.
The tour is timed to follow an issues paper which the Law Commission is due to publish this month on New Zealand's laws and policies on the sale, supply and consumption of alcohol.
For the full story go to:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10581971