[In vitro characterization of glucuronosyl- and sulfotransferases involved in the conjugation of ethanol]. / In vitro Charakterisierung der Glucuronidierung und Sulfatierung von Ethanol.

Ethyl glucuronide (EtG) and ethyl sulfate (EtS) are minor metabolites of ethanol; for some years, both compounds have been used as direct biomarkers of alcohol consumption in forensic and clinical settings as well as in traffic medicine. Drinking experiments showed individual variations of the formation of EtG and EtS. At present, our knowledge on enzymes involved in the conjugation of ethanol is incomplete and partly inconsistent. The purpose of the present study was to characterize those enzymes that are capable of catalyzing glucuronidation and sulfation of ethanol including some potential inhibitors. Following optimization of incubation conditions, the formation rates of EtG and EtS from ethanol via recombinant glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs, hepatic) and sulfotransferases (SULTs, hepatic, intestinal), the kinetics and the inhibitory potential of polyphenols such as quercetin, kaempferol and resveratrol were determined. Analysis was performed following either solid phase extraction due to severe ion suppression of EtG or direct injection of the EtS-containing incubation mixture by high-pressure liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. Deuterated analogues were used as internal standards. All UGTs were capable of metabolizing ethanol through glucuronidation; UGT1A9 and UGT2B7 exhibited the highest formation rates. All SULTs showed ethanol-sulfating activity with SULT1A1 being most active. Data for all enzymes could best be described by Michaelis-Menten kinetics. All polyphenols inhibited the conjugation of ethanol except UGT2B 15. Inhibition was reversible and competitive for most enzymes; mechanism-based inhibition was evident for UGT2B7 and SULT2A1 with regard to quercetin and for SULT1E1 with regard to kaempferol. These results suggest an influence on the formation rates of EtG and EtS by common food ingredients beside known polymorphisms of UGT and SULT family members. Further studies should be conducted to achieve a better understanding of the extent and significance of this influence.

A phenomenological approach to assessing a DUI/DWI program.

In an effort to find a more proactive solution to the problem of drunk driving, a midwestern city has implemented a Driving Under the Influence or Driving While Impaired (DUI/DWI) Court program, a derivative of the popular drug courts. Eligible participants are those who have had two or more drunk-driving offenses but who have not been convicted of a violent offense. Participants volunteer for a 36-week program in exchange for a suspension of their prison sentence. Program elements include drug/alcohol monitoring, support groups, counseling, and extensive supervision. Using a phenomenological approach, this article describes the challenges faced by 20 participants, how they navigated the program requirements, their key realizations about their conditions, and their views on the viability and effectiveness of the program. The article uses qualitative interviews of participants and stakeholders collected for a process evaluation of the DUI program, and official records collected for programming purposes. Findings from this research can be used broadly for programming purposes and can be used by other court jurisdictions that are developing similar programs.

Welfare, temperance and compulsory commitment to care for persons with substance misuse problems: a comparative study of 38 European countries.

AIMS: The study explores the existence and types of law on compulsory commitment to care (CCC) of adult substance misusers in Europe and how such laws are related to variations in demographics, alcohol consumption and epidemiology in misuse of opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, temperance culture heritage, health and welfare expenditure, and involvement and role of the state in welfare distribution. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Legal information on laws on CCC of misusers was obtained primarily through a survey of 38 European countries. Predictors of laws on CCC, and types of such, were analyzed from country descriptors in multivariate models. RESULTS: A majority (74%) of the explored countries have a law concerning CCC. The most common type of CCC law is within criminal justice legislation (45%), but civil CCC is almost as frequent (37%). These two models of CCC legislation are related to differences in cultural heritage and welfare distribution models. CONCLUSIONS: Temperance cultures, i.e. countries with a history of a strong temperance movement, and countries with a Beveridgean distribution of welfare, i.e. through the state, tend to favor civil CCC, while countries with a Bismarckian distribution of welfare, i.e. through insurance with less state interference, tend to favor CCC within criminal justice legislation.

Edward Forbes (1815-1854) and the exhibition of natural order in Edinburgh.

The roles, affordances and social agency of natural history museums are discussed in relation to the writings of Edward Forbes. These signal a motivation, in the mid-nineteenth-century, to naturalize the established social order through the systematic arrangement and display of natural history specimens. The perceived importance of the embodied messages of social order, as an antidote to radicalism and revolution, overrode concerns about temperance and abstinence and immediate fears for the physical safety of collections. The tensions between temperance, and the broader concerns about social order, were played out over the matter of the museums themselves being licensed premises.

Homicide in Chicago from 1890 to 1930: prohibition and its impact on alcohol- and non-alcohol-related homicides.

AIM: The aim of the current paper is to examine the impact of the enactment of constitutional prohibition in the United States in 1920 on total homicides, alcohol-related homicides and non-alcohol-related homicides in Chicago. DESIGN: Data are drawn from the Chicago Historical Homicide Project, a data set chronicling 11 018 homicides in Chicago between 1870 and 1930. Interrupted time-series and autoregression integrated moving average (ARIMA) models are employed to examine the impact of prohibition on three separate population-adjusted homicide series. All models control for potential confounding from World War I demobilization and from trend data drawn from Wesley Skogan's Time-Series Data from Chicago. FINDINGS: Total and non-alcohol-related homicide rates increased during prohibition by 21% and 11%, respectively, while alcohol-related homicides remained unchanged. For other covariates, alcohol-related homicides were related negatively to the size of the Chicago police force and positively to police expenditures and to the proportion of the Chicago population aged 21 years and younger. Non-alcohol-related homicides were related positively to police expenditures and negatively to the size of the Chicago police force. CONCLUSIONS: While total and non-alcohol-related homicides in the United States continued to rise during prohibition, a finding consistent with other studies, the rate of alcohol-related homicides remained unchanged. The divergent impact of prohibition on alcohol- and non-alcohol-related homicides is discussed in relation to previous studies of homicide in this era.

Alcoholic dogs and glory for all: the Anti-Saloon League and public relations, 1913.

In 1913, the Anti-Saloon League of America declared its intention to pursue national prohibition. While it continued to adhere to its core principles of agitation, it expanded its communication efforts and entered a partnership with the Scientific Temperance Federation, a spin-off of the education arm of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The League's tactics were not necessarily new to the temperance movement -- or even to other reform movements of the time. What did set it apart was its single-minded focus on stopping the liquor traffic. Tracing through archival artifacts the League's communication strategies and tactics during 1913, then, this study contributes to a larger body of work that seeks to expand on the traditional model of public relations history.

Did prohibition really work? Alcohol prohibition as a public health innovation.

The conventional view that National Prohibition failed rests upon an historically flimsy base. The successful campaign to enact National Prohibition was the fruit of a century-long temperance campaign, experience of which led prohibitionists to conclude that a nationwide ban on alcohol was the most promising of the many strategies tried thus far. A sharp rise in consumption during the early 20th century seemed to confirm the bankruptcy of alternative alcohol-control programs. The stringent prohibition imposed by the Volstead Act, however, represented a more drastic action than many Americans expected. Nevertheless, National Prohibition succeeded both in lowering consumption and in retaining political support until the onset of the Great Depression altered voters' priorities. Repeal resulted more from this contextual shift than from characteristics of the innovation itself.

Prohibition possibly prohibited: Iowans voicing temperance concerns, 1929-1933.

Prohibition voices supported their cause through community events as well as public speeches and political debates between 1929 and 1933, the last years before the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. Many activists and average citizens continued to believe in Prohibition with a social, moral, or economic reasoning. Although no Carrie Nations had re-emerged, Prohibition still possessed strong supporters led by strong voices. The three major leaders in Iowa were Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart, John Brown Hammond, and Ida B. Wise. Each created an activist persona. All three believed Prohibition could, should, and would work for the economic, social, and moral welfare not only Iowans but all Americans.

Temperance internationalism: Guy Hayler and the World Prohibition Federation.

The World Prohibition Federation, organized in 1909, and the International Record, published from 1917 to 1968, sought to internationalize the temperance movement by collecting and disseminating anti-drink news from around the globe. The Federation was based in London, and most of its activities were English-speakers. A British reformer named Guy Hayler served as its honorary president for thirty years and edited the "International Record" until his death in 1943. The Federation emphasized that prohibitionists comprised a moral community, united regardless of race, religion, nationality, or politics. Poorly funded, the Federation had difficulty competing with the World League against Alcoholism after the Anti-Saloon League of America organized this rival propaganda society in 1919.

[The drinking problem--temperance after prohibition]. / Det egentlige drikkeonde--måtehold i etterforbudstiden.

The alcohol issue had a prominent place in Norwegian politics and society in the first decades of the 20th century; teetotalers' organisations had a major role. Prohibition was the ultimate way of solving the alcohol problem. After the prohibition (1916-27), the teetotalers lost their hegemony. Anti-prohibition views became influential in the making of Norwegian alcohol policy. The post-prohibition years have been seen as at period of change in which a moralist and condemning attitude to alcohol and alcoholics were replaced by a more humane disease concept of alcoholism. This article challenges this view. After prohibition, to separate between use and abuse of alcohol was the main focus of Norwegian alcohol policy. Alcohol abuse and alcohol abusers became the main targets. Abuse of alcohol was first and foremost seen as a social category, as immoral behaviour. In the 1930s, a moralist and condemning attitude toward excessive drinking and drinkers was put forward, not replaced, in Norwegian alcohol policy. A concept of alcoholism as a disease had little or no impact in these years.

The New South Wales Inebriates Act: going, going, gone?

OBJECTIVE: To describe how the use of psychiatric hospitals as institutions for inebriates came about in New South Wales. CONCLUSIONS: A so-called 'temporary' solution to a political problem in 1929 led to the psychiatric hospitals in New South Wales becoming repositories for inebriates for the next 75 years. This unsatisfactory situation may be about to change.

The evolution of U.S. temperance movements since repeal: a comparison of two campaigns to control alcoholic beverage marketing, 1950s and 1980s.

This paper compares the politics of a failed religious movement to ban alcohol advertising in the 1950s with the politics of a more secular, and partially successful, movement to regulate alcohol marketing in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the contexts of the two marketing control movements were quite different, the continuities were equally striking. Both employed arguments about youth, social order, and the power of mass media.

Alcohol use and problems at colleges banning alcohol: results of a national survey.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines student alcohol use and associated problems, including drinking and driving, at U.S. colleges that ban alcohol for all students on campus. METHOD: A nationally representative sample of students (N = 11,303, 61% women) attending U.S. colleges completed questionnaires regarding alcohol use and related behaviors in the spring of 1999. The responses of 2,252 students at 19 ban schools were compared with those of 9,051 students at 76 nonban schools. RESULTS: Students at ban colleges were 30% less likely to be heavy episodic drinkers and more likely to abstain from alcohol. The lower rates of heavy episodic drinking apply to students whether or not they were heavy episodic drinkers in high school. However, among drinkers, students at ban schools engaged in as much extreme drinking as drinkers at schools that do not ban alcohol and experienced the same rate of alcohol-related problems. At schools that ban alcohol, fewer students experienced secondhand effects of the drinking of others than did students at nonban schools. Students at ban schools were not more likely to drink and drive than were students at nonban schools. CONCLUSIONS: A campus ban on alcohol may support abstention from alcohol use and reduce heavy episodic drinking and the associated secondhand effects in college. Since this is a correlational study, we cannot determine whether the lower rates of heavy episodic drinking are due to the ban or to other factors (e.g., self-selection of students to these schools). Ban schools do not enroll fewer high school heavy episodic drinkers.