Impacts of public drinking laws

This bulletin presents the results of a research project evaluating the impact of prohibitions on public drinking in three local government areas in New South Wales. Introduction Policies that restrict the spaces in which alcohol can be consumed are now widely implemented around the world. Bans on the public consumption of alcohol are particularly common in Western countries, including North America, the United Kingdom, Nordic countries, Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, partial or complete bans on drinking in public operate to some degree in all major cities, as well as in many regional and rural towns. Public drinking bans have different names, including dry areas, alcohol-restricted areas, liquor bans, open container laws, alcohol-free zones and alcohol-exclusion zones. There are jurisdictional differences for public drinking laws in Australia, whereby they are a matter of state/territory legislation in some jurisdictions and local council laws in others. In Victoria, public drinking laws are designed, enacted and controlled by local government, but are enforced by state government (police). This means that the provisions of these laws, including which spaces are included and exempt and during what hours the law operates, often differ between local government areas (LGAs), even if they are directly adjacent to one another. It also means that such laws require a considerable degree of cooperation and coordination between local council officers and police. It is only really in the past 10 to 15 years that public drinking bans have proliferated across urban centres in Australia. What is interesting about this timing is that this is also the timeframe in which drinking on the street has become increasingly legitimised in the form of licensed restaurant/bar/hotel footpath trading. Despite the many vested interests involved in public drinking bans, including local council employees, elected councillors, police, licensees, traders, drinkers and community members, and despite the recent proliferation of these drinking bans in urban areas, there have been very few evaluations of their impact or effectiveness throughout the world.   Authored by Amy Pennay, Elizabeth Manton, Michael Savic, Michael Livingston, Sharon Matthews & Belinda Lloyd

Remembering Bonegilla: The Construction of a Public Memory Place at Block 19

This article traces the emergence of Block 19 Bonegilla as a heritage site. I examine shifts in official heritage value through three different heritage listings. I indicate how agencies, like the Bonegilla Steering Committee of which I am a member, are going about the task of interpreting the site using official, staff, resident and host society recall to explain the significance of the place. Disparate sources yield different insights into refugee and migrant arrival experiences, and we are trying to unravel the mix of stories that arise in a place that draws on living memory. We want to address host society experiences of post-war immigration. We want to attract and engage visitors. Such interpretation and presentation tasks involve us in constructing a public memory place

Prohibiting public drinking in an urban area: determining the impacts on police, the community and marginalised groups

With public drinking laws proliferating across urban areas over the past 15 years, this project evaluated the implementation of these laws, their effectiveness, and their impact on a range of target groups including police, residents, traders, local health and welfare workers, and potentially marginalised groups. Overview Public drinking laws have proliferated across urban areas over the past 15 years; however, there have been very few evaluations of their impacts and effectiveness. The purpose of this project was to evaluate public drinking laws across three diverse inner-urban local government areas (LGAs) of Melbourne: the Cities of Yarra, Darebin and Maribyrnong. The objectives of this project were to evaluate the implementation of public drinking laws, the effectiveness of these laws and the impact of these laws on a range of target groups including police, residents, traders, local health and welfare workers, and potentially marginalised groups. The evaluation produced equivocal findings in relation to whether public drinking laws reduced congregations of drinkers (with differing findings across municipalities) and there was no evidence that these laws reduced alcohol-related crime or harm. However, public drinking laws do make residents feel safer and improve the amenity of an area from the perspective of residents and traders. The evaluation found that public drinking laws often result in negative impacts to marginalised individuals and this requires more consideration in the implementation and enforcement of these laws. It is important that public drinking laws are carefully considered, implemented and enforced (with local council officers and police liaising collaboratively to respond to the needs of the individual community) and are coupled with community-specific social inclusion strategies

Exploring the micro-politics of normalised drug use in the social lives of a group of young 'party drug' users in Melbourne, Australia

Young people today live in what some scholars and commentators have defined as a 'post-modern' era, characterised by globalisation, the internet, mass media, production and consumption. Post-modernity has seen a change in the way young people live. Along with career, finance and success, young people today place greater emphasis on leisure, identity, relationships and health. There is some evidence to suggest that other factors, such as family, community and location, have become less important for young people living in the new millennium (Giddens 1991; Beck 1992).In post-modern times, there has been a significant increase in western countries in the use of 'party drugs', including ecstasy and methamphetamine, among 'ordinary' young people in social and leisure-oriented contexts. In the mid-1990s, in response to this rise in drug use, a team of UK researchers developed a theoretical framework in which they argued that the use of some illicit drugs had become 'normalised' (Parker, Aldridge et al. 1998). The proponents of the normalisation thesis suggested that drug use was no longer linked with deviant, pathological or subcultural behaviour, and had become a normal feature of the day-to-day worlds of many young people.This thesis explores the concepts of post-modernity and normalisation as they relate to the culture and practices of a group of young people in Melbourne, Australia, who called themselves the 'A-Team'. The A-Team was a social network of around 25 people who were 'typical', „mainstream‟ and 'socially included' individuals (Hammersley, Khan et al. 2002; Harling 2007), who participated in work and study, and who did not engage in any illicit activity other than drug use.I argue that theories of post-modernism and normalisation emphasise too strongly macro-level changes and do not adequately appreciate the complexity of social process and the cultural meanings negotiated within and through the practices of individuals and groups. For example, while theories of post-modernity have shed light on the way in which lives are structured at the macro level, they less adequately account for the way that young people continue to make and re-make meaning and identity from enduring social relationships and particular social contexts.In response to an increasingly globalised and disconnected world, A-Team members found continuity and stability within the group. They remained 'modern' in their adherence to their social community; however, the form of community they sought took a very post-modern form. They experimented with self-expression and identity outside the confines of traditions such as marriage, family and career, but they did not drift between groups and social spaces in their search for self. They were selective with whom and where they performed their desired identities. The A-Team practiced a form of 'differentiated' post-modernism, which presents a more complex picture of how young people are responding to macro-level social, cultural and economic changes.Throughout this thesis I describe the multiple ways in which A-Team members attempted to manage their use of alcohol and party drugs within their „normal‟ suburban lives. In particular, I highlight the ways in which they engaged with discourses of 'normal' and 'abnormal' drug use and 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' drug use. I also describe the ways in which they engaged with discourses of moderation and excess, and the desire for both self-control and 'controlled loss of control' (Measham 2004a). These discourses arose as a consequence of a range of competing tensions that the A-Team consistently managed. These tensions included the search for bodily pleasure, identity and the desire for intimate social relationships, experiences of drug-related harm and significant critiques of specific forms of drug use from group members, and from non-drug using friends and family.In highlighting these discourses and competing tensions, I argue that although the normalisation thesis has significantly advanced understandings of young people's drug use, it does not adequately appreciate the way that young people must negotiate the 'micro-politics' of normalised drug use, a concept recently outlined by Swedish sociologist Sharon Rodner Sznitman (2008). Rodner Sznitman argued that normalisation is an ongoing process shaped by unique social and cultural micro-politics. Rodner-Sznitman suggested that young drug users engage in practices of 'assimilative normalisation' – by attempting to manage their 'deviant' or stigmatised behaviour – and 'transformational normalisation' – by attempting to resist or redefine what is considered to be 'normal' with respect to illicit drug use and drug users.I describe how A-Team members engaged in practices of assimilative normalisation by concealing their drug use from disapproving friends and family, severing ties with some non-drug using friends, repeatedly attempting to cease or reduce their drug use, drawing on notions of 'controlled' and 'moderate' use as the most acceptable form of drug use, and justifying their drug use as a temporary feature of young adulthood. I also show how some A-Team members engaged in transformational normalisation by rejecting the need for moderate or controlled forms of consumption, attempting to redefine the boundaries of socially acceptable drug-using behaviour and by offering an alternative reading of ecstasy as a drug that enables the performance of an intoxicated self.This research shows that there are many competing social and cultural forces that shape the way that young people use drugs and understand their use. It is essential that we develop a greater understanding of young people's drug use and not interpret their drug using practices through frameworks that rely on macro-level cultural and/or attitudinal shifts. Young recreational drug users face a multitude of issues when attempting to manage their drug use amidst the competing demands of relationships, sport, work, finances and career. These issues and the responses adopted by young drug users are likely to vary between groups, between cultures and between types of drug use

Long waves of consumption or a unique social generation? Exploring recent declines in youth drinking

Background: There is growing evidence for recent declines in adolescent alcohol use in the Western world. While these changes have been subject to scientific debate, the reasons for this downward trend are not yet understood. Method: We consider broader theoretical framings that might be useful in understanding declines in youth drinking. In particular, we reflect on the historical observations of ‘long waves of alcohol consumption’, the ‘Total Consumption Model’, and the ‘Theory of Social Generations’. Based on this, we explore some of the main hypotheses that are presently discussed as possible explanations for changes in youth drinking. Results: We suggest there may have been a change in the social position of alcohol as a social reaction to the negative effects of alcohol, but also emphasize the importance of changes in technology, social norms, family relationships and gender identity, as well as trends in health, fitness, wellbeing and lifestyle behavior. As a result of the interplay of these factors, the ‘devaluation’ of alcohol and the use of it may have contributed to the decrease in youth drinking. Conclusions: For interrupting the recurrent cycle of the ‘long waves of alcohol consumption’, we need to take advantage of the present change in sentiment and “lock in” these changes by new control measures. The model of change presented here hinges on the assumption that the observed change in the position the present young generation takes on alcohol proceeds through the life course, eventually reducing alcohol use in the whole population