Addiction (1999) 94(1), 153 ± 155

News and Notes

COMPILED BY SARAH WELCH

Alcohol and tobacco in Sri Lanka

In 1996, the organization Sober Sri Lanka and

other partners held a workshop concerning de-

velopment of a national policy on alcohol, to-

bacco and other substances. One of the tasks

emerging from this workshop was the prep-

aration of a Country Pro® le on Alcohol and

Tobacco. This pro® le has now been completed

and published. The report is the ® rst of its kind

in Sri Lanka, and the author Mr Dharmadasa

Paranagama welcomes comments and sugges-

tions. I am also pleased to have been sent the

® rst two volumes of the Journal of the IOGT

(International Organization of Good Templars)

Regional Council for South and South East Asia,

based in Sri Lanka. These include reports on

production and consumption of alcohol, tobacco

and other drugs from several of the member

countries, as well as articles on policy formation

from other parts of the world.

Pro® le of Alcohol and Tobacco: Sri Lanka. (1997 ) Spon-sored by the World Health Organization, and pro-duced by Sober Sri Lanka, from 51/1A, IsipathanaMawatha, Colombo 05, Sri Lanka. Tel. 1 94 1595333; fax 1 94 1 597156.

Journal of the IOGT Regional Council for South and

South-East Asia. IOGT Regional Of® ce, address asabove.

The Journal of Addiction and M ental Health

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

was formed early this year from the amalgama-

tion of the Addiction Research Foundation, the

Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, the Donwood In-

stitute and the Queen Street Mental Health Cen-

tre, all in Toronto, Canada. This merger has

made the Centre the largest mental health and

addictions facility in Canada. From the new

centre comes a new journal, of which the ® rst

issue was launched in September. The title

might lead people to think that the journal fo-

cuses on the overlap between substance misuse

and other mental health problems, and indeed

the ® rst issue does include an article on concur-

rent disorders. However the journal aims to

cover developments in both the addiction and

mental health ® elds, not just where they co-

incide. The journal is in magazine-style and aims

to be of interest to clients and family members as

well as to professionals. Feedback is welcome,

and can be sent to: Anita Dubey, Editor, The

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 33 Russell

Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M 5S 2S1. Tel:

1 1 (416) 595 6714; fax: 1 1 (416) 595 6892.

E-mail: 1 adubey@arf.org

Smoking and young people: targeting

depression, anxiety and behaviour problems

Two papers in the October 1998 American Jour-

nal of Public Health are concerned with risk fac-

tors for smoking initiation among young people.

Kellam and Anthony from Baltimore report on a

trial of a classroom-based intervention aimed at

reducing disruptive and aggressive classroom be-

haviour, and at improving academic achieve-

ment. Their hypothesis that this would reduce

smoking initiation among boys was upheld. Pat-

ton and colleagues’ study from Melbourne, Aus-

tralia is concerned with depressive and anxiety

symptoms among adolescents, and how these

relate to smoking initiation. Their prospective

study indicates that adolescents with depressive

and anxiety symptoms are at higher risk of smok-

ing initiation, because they are more susceptible

to the in¯ uences of peer smoking.

KELLAM , S.G. & ANTHONY , J.C. (1998) Targetingearly antecedents to prevent tobacco smoking:® ndings from an epidemiologically based random-ized ® eld trial, American Journal of Public Health, 88,1490.

PATTON G.C., CARLIN , J.B., COFFEY, C. et al. (1998)Depression, anxiety and smoking initiation: aprospective study over 3 years, American Journal of

Public Health, 88, 1518.

0965 ± 2140/99/010153 ± 03 $9.50 Ó Society for the Study of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs

Carfax Publishing Limited

154 News and Notes

Sm oking and older people: a risk factor for

Alzheimer’s disease?

The relationship between smoking and the de-

velopment of Alzheimer’ s disease is unclear, with

some previous studies suggesting that smoking

may have a protective effect. However, a popu-

lation-based prospective cohort study carried out

by Dutch and Belgian scientists found a doubled

risk of developing dementia in general, and

Alzheimer’ s disease in particular, in smokers

compared with people who had never smoked.

There was, however, a difference in those indi-

viduals with the apolipoprotein E genotype, in

whom smoking appeared to have no effect on

development of dementia. These ® ndings will

fuel interest in the possible interactions between

smoking and other risk factors for Alzheimer’ s

disease. The authors are careful to point out the

dif® culties in studying this area, since smoking is

such a powerful risk factor for early death that

studies of smokers who survive to an old age may

be looking at a more selected group than non-

smokers of a similar age.

OTT, A., SLO OTER, J.C., VAN HARSKEP , F. et al. (1998)Smoking and risk of dementia and Alzheimer’ s dis-ease in a population-based cohort study: the Rotter-dam study, Lancet , 351, 1840 ± 1843 .

Addiction brings the customers in

Twice in the last few months I have been frus-

trated in my attempts to take photographs of

shop windows in Central London to show Addic-

tion readers. The ® rst was a window plastered

with bright yellow stickers saying ª Addiction!

Addiction! Addiction!º . The shop was an outlet

for reduced-price designer clothes, with no fur-

ther explanation. The second sighting was a sim-

ilarly decorated windowÐ of a shoe shop. I

returned with my camera, but fashion had

moved on too fast for me to capture this for you.

The Iguana Colum n

Iggy came into the editorial of® ce the other day

and took out of the rather chewed raf® a shop-

ping bag with a Mexican design which she uses

in lieu of a slim-line brief case, the following

piece of copy. We continue to be grateful to Iggy

for her insightful contributions and take some

pride in the fact that this is the only scienti® c

journal in the world to have an iguana on its

staff.

Adherence to the disease concept. I have always

believed that the world is best understood by

hints and murmurs, street ballads, what is writ-

ten on the back of bus tickets, jam-jar labels, all

kinds of ephemera rather than by the grand

declarations by presidents and their of® cial

spokespersons. Ephemera are apt accidentally to

tell the truth.

Within that perspective let me tell you about

two bits of paper which with a strange

con¯ uence recently blew my way. One of these

sheets is a press release from NAADAC, other-

wise the National Association of Alcoholism and

Drug Abuse Counsellors. It tells us that T. Mark

Gallagher has ª assumed the presidencyº of this

no doubt worthy organization. We are on the

occasion of his Assumption vouchsafed a presi-

dential word-bite in the following terms:

We must seize the opportunity to advance our

profession by communicating the facts to the

public and national leadership. Our constel-

lation of knowledge and skills present an in-

comparable set of tools for confronting the

nation’ s number one health problemÐ the dis-

ease of alcohol and other drug addiction.

Let’ s not niggle about it. Mark Gallagher’ s

dif® culties with the English language, let’ s not be

distracted by the grandiloquence, but let’ s in-

stead focus our attention on two substantive

aspects of his statement. First, please note that

NAADAC is being talked up as an organization

uniquely able to deal with the nation’ s number

one health problem. Second, that health problem

is a disease. And there is of course an inner logic

in this statement: the fact that alcoholism is a

disease is what legitimizes NAADAC’ s claims to

a unique role as operator in this health ® eld (and

no doubt also to the issuing of pretty certi® cates

and the charging of fees).

Then to the next bit of ephemera to blow my

way, and it’ s an astonishing duplication, snap,

here-we-go-again kind of thing. This time it is a

communication from ISAM, the International

Society of Addiction Medicine. Declares this

also excellent society ª Addiction is a treatable

disease. Physicians worldwide have a major role

to play in its management.º

So there you go, and with a little bit of histori-

cal research you will ® nd exactly the same use

of the disease concept as justi® cation for

professional entrepreneurship going back to

News and Notes 155

Dr T. D. Crothers and the 1880s. We iguanas

are fascinated by this deeply-rooted manifesta-

tion of human status-seeking behaviour, and

please be sure to send along to me any further

intriguing ephemera of this kind that you may

chance upon.

Conferences and events

Dependence : Politics and Reality. The 38th Inter-

national Congress on Alcohol and Drug Dependence,

15± 20 August 1999, Vienna, Austria. I have just

received preliminary notice of this meeting,

which is held jointly by the International Council

on Alcohol and Addictions, and the Anton-

Proksch Institute in Vienna. For more infor-

mation contact: ICAA/CIPAT, Case postale 189,

CH-1001 Lausanne, Switzerland.

European Psychiatry: Growing Together in Diver-

sity, 28 October± 1 November 1999, Prague,

Czech Republic. This is the tenth congress of the

Association of European Psychiatry. Those wish-

ing to organize a symposium should contact the

Scienti® c Secretariat before 31 March 1999. De-

tails of abstract submission and registration will

be publicised later. Contact: AEP Conference Sec-

retariat, Att. M rs Amal Khoury, Moseager 10,

DK-3230 Graestad, Denmark. Tel: 1 45 4839

4746; fax: 1 45 4839 4869. E-mail: amal@ bech-

andersen .dk

Contributions, comments and suggestions for

News and Notes, as well as details for forth-

coming meetings, can be sent to Sarah Welch by

e-mail as well as to the Addiction of® ces. Please

send conference details well in advance. The

e-mail address is: sphaslw@iop.bpmf.ac.uk