Alcohol major factor for youths' deaths, disabilities, says Derek Rutherford

Thiruvananthapuram: Global Alcohol Policy Alliance (GAPA) international policy advocate Derek Rutherford has said alcohol was the single largest reason for the death and disability of young people.

Mr Rutherford was delivering the keynote address here at International Conference on Effective Strategies for the Prevention of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (I-CON 2016) organised by Subodham, an initiative by the Kerala Government, which began here on Wednesday. Mr Rutherford said it was also the third largest cause of death and disability world over. The efforts of the state to reduce alcohol abuse in the state were laudable, he said.

Chairperson of WHO expert committee and GAPA Sally Casswell said harms caused by alcohol include absence from school, physical fights, arrest, injury requiring hospital treatment and sexual assault.

Subodham’s ‘Magic Drinks’ was also launched at the venue. The initiative against alcoholism and substance abuse is planning to introduce several healthy drinks with ‘Magic Drinks’ tag at the conference.

To begin with, it distributed ‘ice tea’ during the inaugural ceremony of the conference at Tagore Theatre on Wednesday.

Subodham’s ice tea is a healthy variant of its original beverage and is prepared using lemon and cinnamon. Senior chef and USS Global CEO Srikanth Manikoth, has been assigned to make drinks in the programme.

His ‘Red Lady’, a drink made mainly out of beetroot, was in high demand during the New Year Eve celebrations in Kochi. Around 8,000 glasses of this particular drink was distributed on a single day when it was introduced there. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and excise minister K. Babu also attended.