Substance abuse in Canada

The balance of evidence indicates that the most efficient approach to preventing alcohol problems would be to maintain reasonable • Reasonable controls over the availability of alcohol can still be controls over alcohol availability while increasing harm reduction supported on the basis of preventing problems, and alcohol measures to reduce the adverse consequences of excessive drinking in specifi [...] Nonetheless, with the emergence of new evidence concerning the importance of drinking patterns, the acute consequences of drinking and the cardiovascular benefits of drinking, it is likely that policies aimed at preventing alcohol problems will increasingly focus on reducing the harmful consequences of alcohol use rather than on simply controlling overall levels of consumption within the Canadian [...] Although the misuse of drugs has long been considered a major social problem, the acute and devastating consequences of driving while under the influence of drugs has only recently come to the forefront of public attention. [...] For example, whereas the effective concentration of alcohol in the body can be easily and reliably measured from breath samples, the presence and quantity of other types of drugs must be determined from samples of blood, urine, or saliva. [...] The relevance of the drug levels obtained from such samples for determining the extent of driver impairment and the cause of a collision is questionable.