ADCA news. (Newsletters).

n.14, March 2003, Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, ISSN 1446 8573, 12pp.

ADCA News is a bi-monthly publication distributed to Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA) members. It provides a national update on the work of key organisations concerned with alcohol and drug issues, reviews of journal articles of interest to the field, information on ADCA activities and services, and feature articles. The cover article in this edition should be of interest to a wide range of service organisations as it outlines a framework for performance reporting based on the categories of service objectives, strategies and activities, performance measures, performance information and timeframes.

Another feature article discusses the latest report on the social costs of drug abuse in Australia which found that tobacco accounted for the largest cost on society. Tobacco was responsible for 62% of all drug costs and 80% of all health care costs resulting from drug abuse. The report estimated that 62% of alcohol costs and 45% of tobacco costs could be eliminated if effective anti-drug policies and programs were introduced.

New ADCA services for members announced in this edition include access to crime, family research and HIV/AIDS databases in addition to the ADCA DRUG database; email 'alerts' for new articles or publications on topics of interest; and the free faxing by ADCA of news clips of interest. To find out more about ADCA or to become a member, see their web site at: http://www.adca.org.au/index.htm