{"id":9050,"date":"2015-07-27T12:56:53","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T16:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=9050"},"modified":"2015-07-27T12:56:53","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T16:56:53","slug":"tt-loves-alcohol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=9050","title":{"rendered":"TT loves alcohol"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Miranda La Rose
\nJuly 27 2015 – newsday.co.tt<\/A><\/em><\/p>\n

\"TriniTRINIDAD and Tobago and two other CARICOM countries were identified in a Pan American\/World Health Organisation report on alcohol use as having the highest rates of alcohol consumption in the Americas, and Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan says it may be linked to the culture of Carnival.
\n
\nDominica and St Kitts and Nevis were also identified in PAHO\/WHO first Regional Status Report on Alcohol and Health in the Americas, which also warned that harmful use of alcohol increases in the Americas over 2005 to 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things may be linked to the culture of Carnival, which is the culture of drinking, Khan told Newsday in a recent interview. \u201cWe do have a problem and we are working with it,\u201d he said noting that the Ministry of Health STEPS programme towards a healthier TT showed that teenage alcohol use has increased along with Non Communicable Diseases.<\/p>\n

The ministry, he said, was in the process of formulating a national alcohol policy to cover education on the negative effects of alcohol consumption and advertising of alcoholic beverages.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have stringent action on teenage drinking and high education campaign about the negative effects of alcohol targeting peer pressure more than anything else,\u201d he said, there will be positive results.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of young people drink because of peer pressure and then it transfers to adult and addictive drinking,\u201d he said. Alcohol distributors and manufacturers, he said, use young persons with friendly faces to give the marketing push to make alcohol look attractive. The PAHO\/WHO report has recommended that countries limit availability, restrict marketing and increase taxes on alcohol.<\/p>\n

It has recommended minimum age requirement for the purchase, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages; restrictions on where and when alcoholic beverages may be sold; and comprehensive regulation of alcohol marketing.<\/p>\n

The report said that apart from the three CARICOM countries, Paraguay and Venezuela also \u201chad the highest rates of harmful alcohol consumption in the Americas\u201d for the five year period.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe region has been paying a high cost in terms of health, financial resources, and productivity, and these costs will continue to increase if effective measures are not immediately adopted to help promote, protect and improve the health and well-being of people over commercial interests,\u201d PAHO\/WHO Director, Department of Non Communicable Diseases and Mental Health.<\/p>\n

PAHO\/WHO noted that about one in five or 22 percent of current drinkers engage in \u201cheavy episodic drinking\u201d which is higher than the global average of 16 percent.<\/p>\n

The region also has on average, the second highest per capita consumption of alcohol after Europe, and an estimated six percent of the region\u2019s population suffers from an alcohol use disorder, PAHO said.<\/p>\n

In 2012, PAHO said, alcohol contributed to the deaths of over 300,000 persons.<\/p>\n

Alcohol use contributes to over 200 diseases and injuries including cirrhosis of the liver and some types of cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Miranda La Rose July 27 2015 – newsday.co.tt TRINIDAD and Tobago and two other CARICOM countries were identified in a Pan American\/World Health Organisation report on alcohol use as having the highest rates of alcohol consumption in the Americas, and Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan says it may be linked to the culture of … Continue reading TT loves alcohol<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,33,178,7],"tags":[1006,1007,1008,359],"class_list":["post-9050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-tt","category-health","category-media","category-politics","tag-alcohol","tag-dr-fuad-khan","tag-health-minister","tag-newsday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9051,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9050\/revisions\/9051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}