Alcohol, hurting people and harming communities: inquiry into the harmful use of alcohol in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

In: http://apo.org.au/node/55982

Abstract

This report addresses strategies and treatments found to help in addressing the harmful use of alcohol in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Foreword The consumption of alcohol at high risk levels is a national issue, however, the focus of this inquiry is the harmful use of alcohol in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Many reports and studies have recommended stemming the flow of alcohol to address the problems, but usually these works do not analyse why a person drinks at levels which cause them and their loved ones harm. The social and economic determinants of harmful alcohol use such as unemployment, poor housing, racism, trauma, poor education and peer pressure mean that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are overly impacted by the harm caused by alcohol consumed at high levels. A recent Amnesty reports note that it costs $440,000 per year to keep one young person in detention in Australia. This report recommends that justice reinvestment strategies should redirect these resources to overcoming the deprivation and despair in so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. This report addresses strategies and treatments found to help in addressing the harmful use of alcohol. Community led solutions are always the key to uptake and success. Unfortunately slow government processes, for example approving community produced alcohol management plans and the short length of project funding often frustrates community initiatives. The magnitude of the problem caused by high risk consumption of alcohol is often hidden by the lack of collection of useful data for example at the time of hospital admissions, when children are put into out of home care because of their neglect, when people are incarcerated because of alcohol related crime and when children are born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) at some of the highest rates in the world. The committee found examples of the world's best practice at places like Groote ...