UNLABELLED Researchers have established that alcohol is a risk factor for date rape for both victims and perpetrators. OBJECTIVE The authors tried to experimentally address the link between alcohol consumption and women's risk detection abilities in a risky sexual vignette. PARTICIPANTS The authors recruited 42 women from undergraduate classrooms at a large midwestern university and randoml...

OBJECTIVE It is standard practice to clean the skin using a non-alcohol-containing swab before forensic blood alcohol sampling, because of the belief that the use of an alcohol-containing swab will contaminate the sample. The present study aimed to determine whether cleaning the skin with 70% isopropyl alcohol swabs, before venepuncture, alters measured blood alcohol level (BAL). METHODS Volu...

OBJECTIVE In collaboration with Residence Life, the Heads UP research team developed a 21st birthday card program to help reduce the risky drinking often associated with these celebrations. PARTICIPANTS 81 students (28 males, 53 females) completed a post-21st birthday survey. Of these, 74 reported drinking during their 21st birthday and were included in the analyses. METHODS During the 2005...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate regional differences and similarities associated with drinking and driving (DUI) in the five Brazilian macro-regions. METHOD A roadside survey was conducted in the 27 Brazilian state capitals. A total of 3,398 drivers were randomly selected and given a structured interview and a breathalyzer test. To determine the predictors of positive blood alcohol concentration (BAC) ...

OBJECTIVE Concern about excessive alcohol consumption by college students has been raised by surveys indicating that more than 40% of students are "heavy" drinkers. This definition is based on students' reports of consuming five or more drinks (four or more for women) on an occasion sometime during the past 2 weeks. The present survey examines the degree to which this 2-week 5+/4+ drink criteri...

Economic Behavior under Alcohol Influence: An Experiment on Time, Risk, and Social Preferences We report results from an incentivized laboratory experiment to provide controlled evidence on the causal effects of alcohol consumption on risk preferences, time perception and altruism. Our design allows disentangling the pharmacological effects of alcohol intoxication from those mediated by expecta...

Drinking drivers cause some 1200 deaths a year-about one-fifth of all deaths on the road-and one-third of all drivers killed have a blood alcohol concentration over the legal limit, a proportion that rises to two-thirds at night. These figures, published in the Government's recent consultation document on drinking and driving,' are much the same as those given in the Blennerhassett Report of 19...

Alcohol is a known modulator of the innate immune system. Owing to the absence of human studies, alcohol's effect on circulating cytokine profile remains unclear. We investigated the effect of acute high dose alcohol consumption on systemic cytokine release. After an overnight fasting, alcohol-experienced healthy male volunteers (N = 20) aged 25-45 years were given oral ethanol in the form of v...

Performance-based alcohol screening devices may help reduce road traffic accidents, but there is a shortage of easy-to-use performance tests available. To address this issue, four recently developed rapid, computerized, easily implementable performance tests, Spiral for iPhone and Spiral for Mac (psychomotor tests), and the Modified Mental Rotation and Catch the Rabbit tests (cognitive tests), ...

Alcohol is the psychoactive substance most frequently associated with suicidal behavior. We hypothesized that the level of alcohol intoxication and the choice of specific methods of committing suicide are related. Suicides in the Southwestern Croatia in a 10-year period, especially regarding the method of committing and alcohol intoxication, were analyzed. Ten various methods of committing suic...