Past Year Use of Alcohol in Canada

According to the recent estimates produced by the Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms Study (CSUCH), 77.6% of people living in Canada aged 15 and over reported drinking alcohol at least once in the last year.

General Population

According to the recent estimates produced by the Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms Study (CSUCH), 77.6% of people living in Canada aged 15 and over reported drinking alcohol at least once in the last year (CSUCH Prevelance chart). Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer vel ultricies est. In id nisl et sapien volutpat ultricies. Cras et dui interdum, semper leo ac, volutpat metus. Aliquam non sem a nunc scelerisque eleifend tempus vel ipsum. Praesent molestie, mi ut vestibulum faucibus, tellus sapien pharetra quam, lacinia volutpat velit leo a neque. Mauris at ante metus. Praesent ultrices orci at velit mollis sagittis. Nulla et imperdiet massa. Quisque fermentum mi vitae feugiat aliquam. 

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Youth Drinking
 

Societal costs of Alcohol

Canadian Substance Use costs and Harms (CSUCH)
 

Healthcare Services

Emergency Visits, Death, & Paramedic Services

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Death

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Criminal Incidents

In 2014, 3.15 billion was spent on criminal justice costs associated with alcohol use, including the policing, courts and corrections costs of offenses that are either completely attributable to alcohol (i.e., impaired driving and drug-related offenses) or partially attributable to alcohol (i.e., violent and non-violent).3 Alcohol is disproportionately associated with violent crime compared to other types of non-violent crime (20% vs 8%). Per-person criminal justice costs associated with alcohol increased 6% from $84 per person in 2007 to $89 per person in 2014.

Pan-Canadian Investments and Initiatives  

Canada has no alcohol act as it does for other legal psychoactive substances including tobacco and cannabis. The following are recent investments and initiatives on the national level that have been developed to address the harms associated with alcohol consumption:  

1. The National Alcohol Strategy was produced in 2007 in a process led by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, Health Canada and the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission to address the harms from alcohol.43 Since then, three provinces (Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Alberta) and one territory (Nunavut) have developed alcohol strategies. British Columbia has a provincial approach to alcohol policy.
   
   The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction has begun working with partners to update the National Alcohol Strategy, which will address issues including the availability of alcohol, underage drinking, pricing and other incentives, advertising and promotion, and labelling.  
    
2. The government of Canada recently adopted two key regulations to address alcohol-related harms:
    
   1. Bill C-46 was passed in June 2018. The bill makes certain amendments to the Criminal Code sections related to impaired driving and strengthens the criminal law response to both drug- and alcohol-impaired driving. It gives police authority to conduct roadside alcohol and drug screening.44
       
   2. With the objective to protect Canadians from unintentional overconsumption of sweetened alcoholic beverages (flavoured purified alcoholic beverages), the Food and Drug Regulations Act was amended to restrict the alcohol content of these beverages. Flavoured purified alcoholic beverages are limited to a maximum of 1.5 standard drinks if they are sold in a container volume of 1,000 mL or less, unless they are sold in glass containers of 750 mL or more.45  
       
3. In 2016, the Minister of Health announced an updated drug strategy for Canada, the Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy, which replaced the National Anti-Drug Strategy, effective April 1, 2017. The new drug strategy addresses illegal and legal problematic substance use, including alcohol, with an expanded mandate to include harm reduction as a key pillar alongside the existing pillars of prevention, treatment and enforcement.46