CANCER IN THE NEWS

Alcohol: Deadly love of alcohol

Alcohol kills more Australians than illicit drugs and is involved in almost half of all drug-injury deaths, new data shows. The latest national coroner's report shows booze was the primary cause of 482 deaths and a contributing factor in 968 other fatalities. Alcohol killed more people than opioids (1423 deaths), benzodiazepines (1343), amphetamines (766) and cocaine (91), data from 2018 released by the National Coronial Information System shows. Professor Tanya Chikritzhs, of the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University, said alcohol was involved wholly or partly in more than 60 conditions, including cancer, road deaths and violence. The Federal Government is planning to make reducing harmful alcohol and drug consumption a key feature of its new preventive health strategy and already has a goal of cutting it by 10 per cent.

The West Australian; 06/05/21; Page 11