Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs

According to the literature, estimates of the costs of alcohol abuse serve four main purposes: They draw attention to the severity of alcohol problems, they help to target specific problems and policies, they identify information gaps and they provide a baseline for future cost-effectiveness studies. This paper evaluates to which extent these purposes have been met in recent studies and how likely they can be met in the future.

Critical review.

Thirty reports on alcohol costs published after 2000.

Even the most sophisticated cost-of-alcohol calculations include entries based on misleading assumptions or logical mistakes. Monetary calculations do not add precision to the comparison of the weight of health problems. Cost calculations cannot be used to compare the extent or nature of alcohol problems in different countries. Cost calculations should focus on money spent from clearly defined budgets. Calculating the costs to “society” is not a promising research program. It is good to measure the joys and sorrows of heavy drinkers and their nearest, but the use of a monetary metric conceals important issues and value judgments. As a research program, the cost-of-alcohol tradition is based on promises about future cost-effectiveness studies, but traditional measures of alcohol problems offer a better picture of the effects of policy measures than cost-of-alcohol estimates.

To examine how the changes in women's relationship to alcohol during the 1960s appear in narratives of situated drinking occasions.

Newly collected autobiographies written by women born between 1918 and 1951 are analysed using theories by William Labov on narrative construction and Kenneth Burke on the rhetoric of motives.

The historically restrictive attitude to women at all drinking is present in the oldest women's narratives, while the liberalisation of attitudes to alcohol that took place in the 1960s likewise marks the narratives told by the younger women, even though they when writing are of pension able age. With the writers’ diminishing age, the norms framing the narratives have changed, from sobriety among the oldest women to controlled moderation among the younger. And yet, the narratives also demonstrate a stable pattern of questioning women's drinking, although the focus has shifted from tasting alcohol at all to the state of becoming intoxicated.

A controlling norm remains in place, which the women have internalised and made their own. The mitigating circumstances and the neutralising explanations that are presented throughout indicate that the women are conscious of the narratives’ deviation from the prevailing norm, and show that women take a risk in drinking alcohol. When a woman drinks she risks her femininity.

This article describes the prevalence of ketamine use among Danish recreational drug users and provides a contextual understanding of ketamine use within this group.

The analysis is based on a mixed-methods night club study combining a survey among guests in night clubs (N=1,632) with qualitative interviews (9 focus group interviews, 6 double interviews, 7 individual interviews; 53 clubbers in total).

10% of the clubbers have tried ketamine (lifetime use). The ketamine users have also tried a range of other drugs. When taken in club settings, ketamine is often part of a polydrug repertoire. When used in private settings, ketamine is often taken alone to explore its hallucinogenic effects. The users are aware of the potency of the drug, but do not pay attention to long-term negative effects of ketamine use.

Ketamine users predominantly prefer to use ketamine in private settings. This can be viewed as a strategy for risk management, but also as a way of optimising the combination of drug – place – social – body, thereby creating a drug experience that is not possible in public settings.

To explore the association between subjective experiences of drinking and alcohol-related risk perceptions.

The data Is based on a questionnaire with questions about beliefs, use habits and experiences of alcohol and tobacco sent to a random sample of 3,000 Swedes aged 18 to 70 years (response rate= 1,623 Individuals, or 54%). In this study, those respondents who had ever been drinking alcohol were Included (1,536 individuals). The data were analysed statistically by cross tabs and multiple logistic regression.

With some exceptions, the results generally showed that differences In subjective experiences of drinking were related to risk perceptions of alcohol consumption. In particular, those who had more negative than positive subjective experiences of alcohol consumption had substantially higher risk perceptions than those who had more positive than negative experiences, controlling for alcohol consumption and potential confounders. There were also several significant differences between Individuals differently involved in alcohol consumption, net of subjective experiences.

Subjective experiences of alcohol consumption appear to be an important construct in relation to alcohol-related risk perceptions. To understand the link between personal experiences and risk perceptions pertaining to alcohol consumption, both objective measures of personal experiences and subjective measures should be considered.