The watering down of Australia's health policy on alcohol.

The draft National Health Policy on alcohol in Australia, prepared by the Alcohol Sub-Committee of the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy and presented to that Council in November 1987, is compared to that approved by Ministers at their meeting in March 1989. Attention is directed to those policies and strategies which were substantially altered from the draft document and which, it is argued, represented the policy's most significant recommendations. The role of the alcohol industry in effecting these changes is speculated upon.