The Queensland Government is embarking on a long term social marketing campaign to change the drinking culture.

We have to start by increasing awareness and getting a message through to Queenslanders that it is not okay to perpetuate the culture of binge drinking or drinking to excess – particularly for our young people. The campaign was launched in October 2008. Visit the www.everydrinkcounts.qld.gov.au for more information.

It is an offence to sell or supply liquor to someone who is unduly intoxicated or disorderly.

The Liquor Act 1992 defines undue intoxication as:
"a state of being in which a person's mental and physical faculties are impaired because of consumption of liquor so as to diminish the person's ability to think and act in a way in which an ordinary prudent person in full possession of his or her faculties, and using reasonable care, would act in like circumstances."

Intoxication - the signs

There are several signs which, in combination, may indicate that a person has had too much to drink. These include:

• mood changes
• slurring or mistakes in speech
• raised speaking voice
• clumsiness, fumbling with change
• loss of balance or co-ordination, swaying or staggering
• confusion, lack of ability to hear or respond
• bumping into or knocking over furniture
• falling down
• dozing while sitting at a bar or table
• crude behaviour
• spilling drinks or the inability to find one's mouth with glass
• inappropriate sexual advances
• aggression or belligerence
• inability to light a cigarette

For more information, download the fact sheet on responsible alcohol consumption (PDF 545 K).

Further information on alcohol can also be obtained from Queensland Health as well as the website of the Federal Government's Department of Health and Ageing.

Penalties

You can be arrested and fined up to $2500 by police Officers for being drunk or disorderly on licensed premises.

Different drinks contain different amounts of alcohol. Check the labels on containers of beer, wine and spirits you will notice that they state the concentration of alcohol as a percentage per 100ml of volume (eg. 4.8% alcohol/volume for regular beer).

The concept of a 'standard drink' is a measure not of how much liquid has been consumed, but how much pure alcohol has entered the system. The National Health and Medical Research Council defines a standard drink as one which contains 10 grams of pure alcohol.

One standard drink (10 grams) =

• 1 x 285ml pot of full strength beer (4.8%) or
• 1 x 375ml can of mid strength beer (3.4%) or
• 1.6 pots of light strength beer (2.8%) or
• 5 pots of super light (0.9) or
• 1 x 100 ml glass of sparkling wine or
• 1 x 100 ml glass of red or white wine or 
• 300ml bottle of alcoholic soda or
• 1 x 60 ml glass of fortified wine (port, muscat or sherry) or
• One 30 ml nip of spirit

DON'T assume your glasses hold one standard drink (eg. many wine glasses hold amounts greater than 100 mls).