Dr. Helen McAvoy:

My point is partly related to that issue and also to the comments around transport and drink-driving. There is a concern that increased trading hours would lead to people drinking later into the night or earlier into the morning, whichever way one thinks about it. If we are looking at episodic drinking behaviour, which is our existing pattern, going on for longer, there will be people who make a bad decision around driving after they have been drinking and-or taking drugs. There are also people who go to bed for a few hours and think they are okay the next morning when they are, in fact, over the legal limit and their driving will be impaired. It is really important to understand that the issue of drink-driving has not gone away. We are now seeing that a combination of drink- and drug-driving is perhaps becoming even more common than drink-driving on its own, with a resultant additional impairment around decision making.

For the patrons going home, the bar workers and the people driving the buses and trams, this is going to be an issue. We really need to think carefully about risk management around drink- and drug-driving because people do not realise that some of the alcohol and drugs may still be in their system well into the next day. I am not an expert on alcohol and drug metabolising but a person who is taking both is more likely to be impaired to a greater degree and those effects may last longer. That is something to think about. I ask my colleague, Dr. Reynolds, to make a few key points on the context around drug- and drink-driving.