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The Community Alcohol Action Network is an alcohol problem prevention program that addresses systemic causes of risky drinking. It based on research that prevention programs need to change underlying forces that drive high risk drinking (Holder 2001).
CAAN is a natural outcome of the Australian Drug Foundation's work over 40 years. Alcohol was the original substance of concern to the ADF (formerly Alcoholism Foundation of Victoria) and it remains the ADF's major priority issue.
CAAN was created by the ADF in 2003. Alcohol had slipped off the policy agenda in the 1990s, due to Australia's heroin crisis, and alcohol problems were receiving comparatively little media and community attention. The de-regulation of the alcohol industry had helped to the change the way alcohol was regarded.
Alcohol was becoming increasingly ‘normalised' for minors. While national data showed the age at which children were drinking was getting younger, and the amount they were drinking was increasing, the alcohol industry was nevertheless marketing youth-friendly ‘designer drinks' and ‘alcopops' that made alcohol more palatable for children.
Parents complained to the ADF that access to alcohol was too easy for young people and that adults encouraged underage drinking. In one example a sports coach provided an underage netball team with alcohol on an intra-state trip, against the express wish of a girl's parent. In another, underage participants in a "fashions on the field" competition were awarded bottles of champagne as a consolation prize.
At the same time interventions by the ADF's Centre for Youth Drug Studies in 2002-3 showed it was possible for systems that inspired problematic drinking to be challenged successfully. First, their analysis of alcohol advertising for the Department of Health led ultimately to a review of advertising by the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy (Roberts 2003). Second, they prevented the marketing of alcoholic milk (Munro 2004).
CAAN was set up to build on those successes, to engage the community and to take action with the long-term goal of lessening cultural cues for risky drinking.
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References
Holder H. (2001) 'Prevention of alcohol problems in 21st Century', American Journal on Addictions, 10, p.1-15.
Roberts G. (2002) 'Analysis of the Voluntary Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code', Centre for Youth Drug Studies, ADF, Melbourne.
Munro G. & Learmonth A. (2004) 'An unacceptable risk: the problem of alcoholic milk', Drug & Alcohol Review, 23, p.109-113.
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