By REBECCA WALSH, health reporter
New Zealand drinkers who don't know when to say when will now be able to refer to the bottle they are drinking from.
The Alcohol Advisory Council (Alac) has introduced an icon which tells people at a glance how many drinks are in a bottle to counter
public confusion about what constitutes a "standard drink".
Alac chief executive Mike MacAvoy said people tended to talk about their alcohol consumption in terms of the number of glasses or bottles of alcohol they drank but that did not provide an accurate measure of the amount of alcohol they were consuming.
For example, the number of standard drinks in a 750ml bottle of wine could vary by more than one standard drink depending on the alcohol content.
"You can't know how much alcohol you're drinking just by the number or size of the glasses, cans or bottles you consume," Dr MacAvoy said.
"It's the amount of alcohol in your drink that counts."
Since 2002, the law has required every container of alcohol to include written information about how many standard drinks it contains.
A standard drink contains 10g of pure alcohol.
But Nicki Stewart, chief executive of the Beer, Wine and Spirits Council, which has worked with Alac on the education campaign, said the label often went unnoticed and, if seen, was often misunderstood.
The new icon would start appearing on some products soon and other products would change when new labels were created, she said.
Radio, television and print advertising was due to begin shortly.
The "Straight Up" brochure about what constituted a standard drink would also be available in Foodstuffs supermarkets.
The Alcohol Advisory Council's website recommends that in any week, men drink no more than 21 standard drinks and women should not have more than 14.
In any one drinking session, men should have no more than six standard drinks and women four.
