No abstract

IntroductionIn Australia, cask wine is the cheapest alcoholic beverage available, offering the lowest price per standard drink. Despite this, there is little research on the contextual correlates of cask wine consumption. Therefore, the current study aims to describe how cask wine consumption has changed over the last decade. Then, through comparisons between cask and bottled wine, how prices, typical drinking locations, and patterns of consumption differ between the beverages.MethodsCross‐sectional data was drawn from two sources. Four waves of the National Drug Strategy Household Survey were used (2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019) in order to examine consumption trends over time. The International Alcohol Control study (2013) in Australia was additionally used to explore pricing and consumption trends in greater detail.ResultsCask wine was considerably cheaper than other forms of wine at $0.54 per standard drink (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.45–0.62, p < 0.05). Consumption trends associated with cask wine differed from that of bottled wine, being consumed almost entirely at home and in significantly greater quantity (standard drinks per day 7.8, 95% CI 6.25–9.26, p < 0.05). Among the heaviest drinkers, 13% (95% CI 7.2–18.8, p < 0.05) consumed cask wine as their main drink, compared to 5% (95% CI 3.76–6.24, p < 0.05) consuming bottled wine.ConclusionsCask wine drinkers are disproportionately more likely to consume higher amounts of alcohol, paying less per drink doing so compared to bottled wine drinkers. As all cask wine purchases were under $1.30, a minimum unit price may largely affect cask wine purchases, applying to a far smaller proportion of bottled wine.

IntroductionDrug‐checking services can minimise the potential harms from drug use and have received increased attention in recent policy debates in Australia. In this brief report, we aim to better understand the prevalence of support for drug‐checking services among individuals of certain demographic groups, social status and social attitudes towards drug and alcohol policy.MethodsThis report uses data from the 2019 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, a national population study of alcohol and other drug use conducted triennially in Australia. We examined support for drug‐checking services descriptively, alongside associations between demographic, social and substance use variables and support of drug‐checking using Generalised Linear Model analyses with a Poisson distribution and log link.ResultsOverall, 56% of the sample supported policies related to drug‐checking services. Support was highest among those aged 25–34 years (62%), most socioeconomically advantaged (66%), with an income over $104,000 (64%), with a bachelor's degree or higher (65%), living in major cities (58%), recent consumers of commonly tested drugs (88%) and other drugs (77%), and risky drinkers (64%). In the multivariable model, those who were younger, women and had the highest level of education were more likely to support the policy compared to those who were aged 55+ years, men and had lower levels of education.Discussion and ConclusionThis report highlights that, while there were different degrees of support based on demographic characteristics, substance use status and social attitudes towards drug and alcohol policy, the overall majority of the sample supported the provision of drug‐checking services.

No abstract