Alcohol and Public Policy Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition (1981) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
6. Reducing Environmental Risk
6. Reducing Environmental Risk
Pages 100-111
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 100... ...
The focus in this chapter shifts from the management of drinking practices as such to ways of modifying environments so that when drinking or drunken activities occur, they are less likely to cause or exacerbate damage. We are interested in this approach because even the most strenuous efforts that might be taken to reduce hazardous consumption or episodes of drinking cannot realistically be expected to eliminate or radically curtail them.
|
From page 101... ...
We do not withhold public funds from the treatment of heart disease in smokers or obese people, or discourage the spread of cardiopulmonary resuscitation training or blood pressure testing, on the grounds that many or even most of the people at risk may contribute
|
From page 102... ...
There are two principal areas of such modifications: first, ones that try to reduce the likelihood of traumatic injuries from mechanical causes, either by making the physical environment more forgiving or by placing social "cushions" around the drinker; second, ones that try to reduce damage wrought by interpersonal events either by physically isolating the drinker from certain hostile reactions or by trying to reduce the intensity of such hostility. DAMAGE IN THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT PHYSICAL SAFETY MEASURES Alcohol intoxication beyond a minimum level makes one clumsy and inattentive, and it is therefore directly implicated in a certain proportion of casualties due to ineptness in dealing with the environment: burns, drownings, falls, and other momentum injuries, notably motor vehicle accidents.
|
From page 103... ...
The most important class of technological devices for the prevention of traumatic deaths related to alcohol is probably passive restraints (such as air bags) for auto passengers.
|
From page 104... ...
To use the example of passive restraint technologies in automobiles, it is possible to promote their use by the following: · educating consumers to buy or demand them; · providing research and development grants to improve them; · differentially taxing autos that are not equipped with them; · requiring that manufacturers make one or more of them available as optional equipment; or · requiring every automobile sold or licensed to be furnished with one of them.
|
From page 105... ...
An agency broadly interested in the role of alcohol-induced and other impairments in accidental injury, by fostering the development of more suitable accident reporting systems, could provide a focus for investigating the value of alternative policies suggested by this information. SOCIAL SAFETY MEASURES Apart from the emphasis on consumer product safety, the social environment can be manipulated to decrease the exposure of drinkers to alcohol-induced casualties.
|
From page 106... ...
conveniently concentrates victims of the jackroller and allied trades in particular city districts. Victimization of the drunk, of course, extends beyond skid row inhabitants into all social strata.
|
From page 107... ...
DEEMPHASIZING HOSTILITY The collective informal social norms that largely govern drinking behavior in the United States tend to operate within wide margins of tolerance. Typically, the broad post-repeal accommodation of alcohol in this society and the fact that most adult Americans have personal exposure or experience with being drunk make most people hesitant either to intervene directly, or too roundly to criticize, the drunken behavior of others.
|
From page 108... ...
Of course, such a policy of Reemphasis poses sharp value conflicts for instance, between the potential benefit to health from compulsory treatment versus the deprivation of liberty involved in such benefits. In addition to public drunkenness, there are three other areas in which Reemphasis may prove to have advantages, although empirical evidence is scarce: teenage drinking, regional differences, and recovery from alcoholism.
|
From page 109... ...
To define more and more drinking behaviors as unacceptable may reduce somewhat the rate of those behaviors; it also tends to make deviants of those who persist in the behaviors, which accelerates the development of an isolated subculture at odds with the larger society, requiring increased attention of legal agencies to the reduction of this conflict. CONCLUSION Public concern about alcohol problems has centered on two specific areas.
|
From page 110... ...
In the area of accident prevention, it is clear that alcohol intoxication is a prominent form of human factor error in the most severe categories of injury. Alcohol intoxication has been investigated in depth only in the area of road accidents, although a number of limited studies (see Aarens et al.
|
From page 111... ...
For this reason we think it is important to improve current knowledge about how increased sensitivity to alcohol problems may have negative effects, sobering reminders that sometimes problems are better approached by dealing with symptoms as they occasionally occur, rather than raising alarms at any indication that possible causes are present.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.