{"id":19781,"date":"2025-08-03T17:08:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T16:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=19781"},"modified":"2025-10-21T20:55:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T19:55:06","slug":"alcohols-global-impact-the-fight-for-evidence-based-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/08\/alcohols-global-impact-the-fight-for-evidence-based-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol&#8217;s Global Impact: The Fight for Evidence-Based Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\">by\u00a0<strong>Shane Varcoe &#8211; Executive Director for the Dalgarno Institute, Australia &#8211; <\/strong>Jul 23, 2025<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\">Alcohol affects 15 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, yet remains one of the most overlooked barriers to global progress. Behind the marketing messages and cultural acceptance lies a stark reality: alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen causing seven types of cancer, with no safe level of consumption.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\">This week on the\u00a0<strong>Unnecessary Harm Podcast<\/strong>, \u00a0we welcomed\u00a0<strong>Kristina Sperkova\u00a0<\/strong>, President of\u00a0<strong>Movendi International<\/strong>\u00a0, a global network of over 170 organizations across 63 countries working to reduce alcohol-related harm. Kristina shared powerful insights from her decade of leadership at the forefront of international alcohol policy advocacy, including her recent work at the World Health Assembly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\">Kristina reveals how alcohol undermines everything from poverty reduction to gender equality, the predatory tactics of Big Alcohol at UN meetings, and the groundbreaking policy wins that are reshaping how the world views alcohol taxation and regulation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>\u00a0Key Takeaways From This Episode\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Massive<\/span> Global Impact:<\/strong>\u00a0Alcohol directly affects 15 of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, from perpetuating poverty cycles to fueling intimate partner violence (50-80% of violent acts are alcohol-related).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Environmental Devastation:<\/strong>\u00a0Producing one liter of beer requires 270 liters of water, highlighting alcohol&#8217;s massive environmental footprint through water depletion and agricultural monocultures.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Cancer Connection:<\/strong>\u00a0Since 1988, alcohol has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen alongside tobacco and asbestos, yet public awareness remains dangerously low.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Industry Deception:<\/strong>\u00a0Big Alcohol uses front groups, creates dependency through corporate partnerships, and spreads lies about employment impacts and illegal production to derail effective policies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Policy Solutions Work:<\/strong>\u00a0WHO&#8217;s &#8220;best buys&#8221; &#8211; availability restrictions, marketing bans, and public health taxation &#8211; are proven, fast-acting interventions that reduce consumption and generate revenue.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Recent Victory:<\/strong>\u00a0After 10 years of advocacy, alcohol taxation was officially recognised as a source of domestic resource mobilisation at the Financing for Development conference &#8211; a major breakthrough for global policy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Source: https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/alcohols-global-impact-fight-evidence-based-policy-shane-varcoe-fmc8c<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0Shane Varcoe &#8211; Executive Director for the Dalgarno Institute, Australia &#8211; Jul 23, 2025 Alcohol affects 15 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, yet remains one of the most overlooked barriers to global progress. Behind the marketing messages and cultural acceptance lies a stark reality: alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen causing seven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,15,89,64,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alcohol","category-australia","category-environment-drug-politics","category-health","category-strategy-and-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20113,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781\/revisions\/20113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}