Full title: Problem drinking, gambling and eating – three problems, one understanding? A qualitative comparison between French and Finnish social workers

Author: Michael Egerer (University of Helsinki)

Michael Egerer compares Finnish and French social workers’ perceptions of problem drinking, gambling and eating. Based on qualitative analysis of focus-group interviews, he shows how the traditional way to handle addictions, the institutional context of the professionals and the country-specific value climate create a particular understanding of the three problems with gambling diverting most.

Full title: Consequences and behaviour problematised: The establishment of alcohol misuse as an object of empirical inquiry in late 18th- and early 19th-century European medicine

Author: Ruuska Arto (University of Helsinki)

In his article, Arto Ruuska discusses European medical thought on alcohol in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Earlier historiography has identified the era as the starting point of individualising disease concept of alcohol addiction. Ruuska argues that the era’s proper legacy is rather the establishment of alcohol-related phenomena as objects of empirical inquiry, and – contrary to the claims made in the historiography of the ‘disease concept of addiction’ – the articulation of socio-cultural embeddedness of alcohol-related pathologies.

Author: Transform Drug Policy Foundation

The growing costs of the war on drugs – particularly for the worst affected producer and transit countries – have now reached a crisis point that is driving an increasingly high-level and mainstream debate on drug policy and law reform. But while there is a growing consensus that current approaches to drug control have been ineffective or actively counterproductive, there is less agreement on how these shortcomings should be addressed.

Full title: Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries

Authors: Prof Rob Moodie, David Stuckler, Carlos Monteiro, Nick Sheron, Bruce Neal, Thaksaphon Thamarangsi, Paul Lincoln, Sally Casswell, on behalf of The Lancet NCD Action Group

The 2011 UN high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) called for multisectoral action including with the private sector and industry. However, through the sale and promotion of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink (unhealthy commodities), transnational corporations are major drivers of global epidemics of NCDs. What role then should these industries have in NCD prevention and control? The study emphasises the rise in sales of these unhealthy commodities in low-income and middle-income countries, and consider the common strategies that the transnational corporations use to undermine NCD prevention and control.

Authors: University of Stirling, Alcohol Health Alliance UK and British Liver Trust

‘Health First: An evidence-based alcohol strategy for the UK’ sets out for the first time a series of no-nonsense recommendations to tackle the harm caused by excess drinking across the UK. It calls for the UK Government to prioritise Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP), amongst a set of key policies aimed at curbing the nation's drink problem. The strategy was developed by a group of experts independent from government and the alcohol industry under the auspices of the Alcohol Health Alliance.
Although the strategy was developed for the UK, it contains evidence and policy arguments which will be of interest to all researchers, advocates and policymakers across Europe who are seeking to address the harms of alcohol.