Coalition for the Prevention of Alcohol Problems (CPAP)
Alcohol dependence is the development of characteristic deviant behaviors associated with prolonged consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol. Alcoholism is a chronic illness of undetermined etiology with an insidious onset, showing recognizable symptoms and signs proportionate to its severity. Most of the time an approach has benefited so many alcoholics as effectively as the help they have offered themselves through coalitions and partnerships that are focused on alcohol prevention or intervention. One of these is the Coalition for the Prevention of Alcohol Problems (CPAP).
The goal of the Coalition for the Prevention of Alcohol Problems is to promote programs and procedures that help minimize problems of alcohol dependence and addiction. The coalition actively promotes restraint and abstinence against alcohol consumption in their agenda. It should more accurately be called the Coalition for the Prevention of Alcohol. This coalition of groups is co-chaired by of the Alcohol Policies Project and Stacia Murphy of the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence (NCADD) ( 2006).
Hacker has also headed the temperance-oriented Alcohol Policies Project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) for three decades. He is Co-Chair of the Coalition for the Prevention of Alcohol Problems, whose members include the American Council on Alcohol Problems and many other restraint, abstinence, and discipline activist groups ( 2006). For this reason, the coalition is co-chaired by CSPI and NCADD, both groups where Hacker is part of.
The coalition is made up of groups or members including the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (), the American Council on Alcohol Problems (earlier called the Anti-Saloon League), the Temperance League of Kentucky, the General Board of Global Ministries, and the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol Problems ( 2006).
There are several issues which the Coalition has identified as priorities. These include:
(a) restrictions on alcohol advertising;
(b) improvements in alcoholic beverage labeling, including strengthening and expanding the current mandated warning label and providing additional consumer on alcoholic beverage containers, such as ingredients, alcohol content, calories, information about standard units of service, and a toll-free telephone number for consumer questions about alcohol;
(c) increase in federal alcohol excise taxes and equalization of the tax rate on all beverage alcohol types;
(d) stronger regulation of alcoholic beverage industry practices by federal agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Federal Trade Commission;
(e) expanded research on alcohol advertising, labeling and tax issues through the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other public and private agencies;
(f) promotion within the legislative and executive branches of government of a better understanding of alcohol as America’s costliest and most widespread drug problem; and
(g) stronger demand-reduction policies related to alcohol, and proposals to expand public alcoholism treatment and prevention initiatives ( 2006).
Guiding committees, such as the CSPI, NCADD, American Public Health Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, among many others, meet periodically in Washington, DC to set the Coalition’s advocacy agenda and strategy. Organization members are invited to participate in CPAP meetings, keep informed through the CPAP listserv, sign onto coalition letters, and help disseminate grassroots action alerts that will advance the Coalition’s agenda ( 2006).
To summarize, the coalition offers programs that focuses on support or encouragement and education of the public regarding high-visibility, high-leverage alcohol policies, alcohol taxation, advertising and marketing, underage drinking, labeling and college binge drinking, which are issues considered as priorities of the coalition in their effort to minimize problems of alcohol dependence and addiction.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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