Latest news with #drinking
CBC
3 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
Legal drinking coming to 7 Ottawa parks starting July 1
The City of Ottawa has put out its list of seven parks that are part of its legal drinking pilot project. People will generally be able to drink in designated areas of these parks from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., July 1 to Oct. 31: Brewer Park across Bronson Avenue from Carleton University. Lansdowne Park's Great Lawn east of the TD Place stadium. Minto Park off Elgin Street. McNabb Park at Gladstone and Bronson avenues. Queenswood Ridge Park near Tenth Line Road and St, Joseph Boulevard in Orléans. Riverain and Strathcona parks along the Rideau River near the Adàwe Crossing. The parks will have signs indicating that public drinking is permitted. Up to now, alcohol consumption has been banned in all city parks without a permit. But the provincial government changed regulations in 2019 to allow municipalities to designate public places where drinking is allowed. Capital ward Coun. Shawn Menard asked city staff to consider implementing a pilot program in Ottawa, and earlier this year they came back with a report laying out the options. After a few tweaks at committee, the idea got unanimous support at council earlier this month.
Daily Mail
09-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Huge cancer risk linked to bad habit that thousands of Australians are doing daily
The recent rise in cancer among younger people has sparked all manner of speculation about what new factors lie behind it, but a fresh study has found that two longstanding culprits - drinking and smoking - take most of the blame. A major, global report revealed the combination of drinking and smoking raises the risk of colorectal cancer in under-50s. German researchers compiled just over two dozen studies comparing regular drinkers and smokers to teetotalers. Just 100 cigarettes in a person's lifetime - the equivalent of one per week for two years - was linked to a 59 percent higher risk than people who have never smoked. Colorectal cancer, or bowel cancer as it is often called, is the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia. The link between colorectal cancer with drinking and smoking was something Associate Professor Raglan Maddox, who leads ANU's Tobacco Free research group, is aware of. 'I'm not overly surprised to see things like colorectal cancers increasing in people under the age of 50, particularly in Australia,' he said. 'We tend to think that we're fit, healthy, (leaning) into that healthy lifestyle culture that Australia is well known for and stereotyped for.' But he warned that Australia is seeing more diagnoses in those aged from 20 to 39, often at advanced stages due to overlooked or dismissed symptoms. 'Australia has a fairly socialised, normalised behavior around alcohol consumption. Drinking, smoking and vaping are quite high risk factors,' he said. 'It is something that we're seeing change over time, but it is something that we need to be absolutely aware of.' Alcohol and smoking have both been linked to colon cancer in the past, as they release chemicals that destroy DNA and cause cancer cells to mutate. But the new study is one of the first to compare both factors at once in relatively low amounts. 'We know that smoking and alcohol consumption, both independently and in combination, are causal for cancers' Assoc. Prof Maddox said. '(But we also) know that these substances are also aggressively marketed towards young people, often as part of a nightlife, party-type culture. 'How do we make sure that we look after ourselves and live fruitful, happy lives?' Assoc. Prof Maddox said there needs to be increased awareness about the addictive nature of smoking and Australians should seeks support from loved ones. 'Overall, the harm is massive. We know that, on average, 66 Australians will pass away every day from smoking,' he said. 'It's this silent epidemic that people don't talk about but we know causes cancer, heart disease, diabetes (and) a whole range of issues.' When it comes to reducing alcohol consumption, he said people should seek out environments and situations where there is less pressure to drink. For anyone concerned about colorectal cancer symptoms, those aged 45-49 are eligible for the national screening program. Younger Aussies are also urged to be vigilant for symptoms including blood in stool, changes to bowel habits and unexplained or unexpected weight loss or tiredness. 'I'd encourage people, if you're not feeling great, making sure that you're conscious of your own health and symptoms is really important,' Assoc. Prof Maddox said. 'Make sure you get regular health checks, make sure that all those sort of things are kept up to date.' The review, published in the journal Clinical Colorectal Cancer, looked at 12 studies on alcohol consumption and 13 on smoking. Overall, the team found daily alcohol consumption in general increased the risk of early-onset colorectal cancer 39 percent compared to lower amounts. On cigarette use, the researchers found a 39 per cent increased risk of colorectal cancer in people who smoked cigarettes regularly compared to non-smokers. Current smokers were shown to have a 43 percent greater likelihood of developing a rectal tumor than those who never smoked, and colon tumors were linked to a 26 percent increased risk.
BBC News
09-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Moderation urged after Jersey happy hour ban lifted
Jersey's director of public health has encouraged people to be safe and sensible when drinking alcohol after a 38-year ban on drinks promotions was ban was removed by the island's Licensing Assembly last month after it said restrictions had led to increased binge drinking and drinking at means venues are able to offer drink promotions such as happy hour and two-for-one Peter Bradley, director of Public Health Jersey, said unhealthy drinking at home was still a concern despite a decline in social drinking culture. Prof Bradley said health officials had worked to provide advice and recommendations on reforming the licensing warned excessive drinking was harmful to health and Public Health Jersey was focused on encouraging healthier drinking habits."I encourage all islanders to be safe and sensible when out and about and to adopt easy drinking habits such as staying hydrated with water, eating before and during drinking, and trying low or non-alcoholic alternatives," he latest alcohol profile report by Public Health Jersey found islanders drank 10.8 litres of pure alcohol a year, one litre more than those in the UK.
Daily Mail
05-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: My round? Sorry if I sound mean, but with beer at £5 a pint I fear it may now be every man for himself
Anyone conversant with pub culture will know the kind. This breed of drinker knows who they are too – shameless freeloaders. Some of them even admit as much with a chuckle. They are Tam, perched on his stool at The Clansman in the Scottish sitcom Still Game – ever thirsty, ever eyeing opportunities for others to finance the quenching. I've known many Tams and, on occasion, have become more fixated than I should in the course of an evening down the boozer on their modus operandi. I can't let it go. How can they do this to their friends? Why so sleekit? Where is their sense of honour? I am talking about the ones who disappear to the loo when they sense the next round of drinks is looming and return, minutes later, to find their next pint waiting for them. 'Oh, grand. Cheers everyone.' The ones who quaff away for hours at their companions' expense and then, as expectant eyes turn to them, suddenly remember there's somewhere they have to be. 'Later, chaps. First round's on me next time.' I've seen them finally cornered and marvelled at their gall as they ask if anyone can spot them 20 quid to get the next round in. We have all met a character like Tam from sitcom Still Game, who constantly tries to avoid paying for a drink I've watched that twenty cross the table – sometimes it has even come from my wallet – to land in the pub leech's paw, and I've known in that second the donor will never see it again. The cardinal rule of my nights spent in licensed establishments was never to be that guy. Spend more than you planned if need be. Just avoid being thought of as him. Drink with integrity. Take the hit on a round that wasn't strictly yours to get stung for rather than allow suspicions to ferment that you are not a team player. I was aware, of course, that this plays straight into the freeloaders' hands. They stick close to people who don't want to be like them. This certainly, was the game as I understood it two or three decades ago when my visits to pubs were more frequent and my staying power was at its peak. Alas, today I am struggling with the rules. Do I even want to be a team player? The average price for a pint of beer, we learn this week, has passed the £5 mark. And that's the cheap stuff. If your mates are on Peronis or Morettis or BrewDog's Punk IPA – as those I meet in pubs invariably seem to be – we are talking upwards of £6. That £20 note was good for six drinks or more back when I was getting in the rounds. Today it will score you three Punk IPAs and you may as well put the few pennies change in the charity box, please, barman. In the circumstances, are rounds even still a thing? Shouldn't it be every man for themselves? What is the modern etiquette now that the sums are getting serious? I was wondering this even as I walked in the door of a Glasgow city centre watering hole a few weeks ago. Lots of people I knew were going to be there. There was an excellent chance – because I knew them to be kind-hearted souls – that someone would offer to buy me a drink within seconds. What is the right answer? In truth, the situation requires more investigation, but pub environments, I find, are not conducive to the over-thinking of responses to simple questions like 'do you want a drink?' But let us, in our sobriety, over-think it here. Now, you have very generously extended to me the offer of a drink. Let me tell you my problem with that. I've only just arrived. For all I know, you are already in a round with six or seven people. If I accept your offer then I am – according to the etiquette with which I am familiar but, admittedly, may be out of date now – subsumed into this round, which entails certain obligations on my part. In days gone by, this would not have worried me because I was either capable of drinking six or seven pints or past caring by pint four or five. But you will accept that times have changed. You see before you today the enfeebled husk of the drinker I once was. Let me be brutally frank: I'm out of here after pint two or three. I hope you are beginning to see my difficulty. Suppose for a moment I were to say yes. Half an hour from now, I would be dutybound to repay your kindness with my own offer of the refreshment of your choice from the bar. But what if Tom, Dick, Harry, John, Paul, George and Ringo have empty glasses too? In the current climate, Peronis costing what they do, my tolerance for them being what is, I would find my presumed obligation to them, as fellow members of 'the round', vexatious. And here, friend, is the other dimension to my quandary. Long ago, when I thought I knew my way around drinking culture, I made a promise to myself that I would never be that guy – the one that I am in grave danger of becoming if I accept your hospitality, keep my head down for round two and leg it as soon as that glass is drained. So, you see, I am caught on the horns of a moral and financial dilemma. You ask me if I want a drink. I say that is far too complicated a question for a guy who has just walked in the door. If I know anything about pubs, it is that the drinker you assaulted with this stream of verbiage would have started talking to somebody else – anybody else – five minutes ago. So, actually, what I said was: 'No thanks, you're fine, mate. I'll get my own. I'm only staying for a couple.' But might the dawn of the £5 and £6 pint be an appropriate juncture to give the more ponderous answer a fair hearing? Is the eyewatering expense of getting a round in – coupled with the collapse of my generation's ability to last the pace – forcing us to walk a pub protocol tightrope? I cannot ever be Tam the sponger from Still Game and. Nor, I find, can I still be the willing dupe team player who says 'hey, who's counting anyway?' It turns out I am counting. It was, then, with an every-man-for-himself bearing that I approached the bar and sorted myself out with a £6 Moretti. Did I feel good about it? Nope. Did it seem churlish, petty, anti-social, an affront to the rich social culture, the sense of camaraderie that the pub round once engendered for me? Yup. But, like I say, I no longer know how the game is played. And drink is too expensive – and I can hold too little of it – for occasional visitors like me to leave the pub with honour. I skulked away after three or four, wondering if I should write to a problem page. How does one negotiate a night in the pub? As the freeloader? The patsy? The standoffish loner? None of them work for me.
South China Morning Post
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
K-drama Second Shot at Love midseason recap: uneasy mix of social themes and romcom tropes
Lead cast: Choi Soo-young, Gong Myung Advertisement Latest Nielsen rating: 2.7 per cent At one point in Second Shot at Love, Han Geum-joo (played by Girl's Generation K-pop star Choi Soo-young) reveals her habit of drinking soju secreted inside a bottle of toner at her vanity table to hide her drinking habit from her imperious mother, Kim Gwang-ok (Kim Sung-ryoung, A Virtuous Business ). In the same confessional sequence, her father, Han Jung-soo (Kim Sang-ho, Sweet Home ), and sister Han Hyun-woo (Jo Yoon-hee, The Escape of the Seven ) also reveal their hiding places – bourbon in a cistern, beer cans in a doghouse. Hiding bottles of booze from family members is a pretty clear sign of serious alcoholism. This seems to fit with the apparent theme of the show, which is about a young woman trying to kick her drinking habit and get her life back on track.
