SAANICHNEWS COMMUNITY
SPORTS
Clean enough to swim in
Big air, big tour
Swimmers are being encouraged to dip into the Gorge Waterway, as they did 90 years ago. Page A3
JumpShip BMX competition and Tour de Victora cap off Victoria’s cycling festival this weekend. Page A21
Friday, June 22, 2012
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www.graymatters.ca
Seen here at Felicita’s Campus Pub, Kristina Brache, a UVic graduate student with the Centre for Addictions Research, found consuming alcohol with energy drinks goes hand in hand with high risk behaviour, such as drinking and driving. Her work has caught the attention of the CRD traffic safety commission.
Kyle Slavin News staff
PLEASE SEE: Cutbacks, Page A12
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Graffiti removal ends in wake of Saanich budget cutbacks It’s hard to tell whether the white spraypainted tag on a wall at the corner of Quadra and Tattersall begins with an M or a B. Or it might just be a random squiggly character. Either way, you’re bound to notice it next time you pass the intersection, as Saanich public works crews likely won’t be cleaning it up any time soon. As part of budget cutbacks in the municipality, there’s no money available to clean graffiti off municipally owned walls, fences, street furniture and overpasses. “We still will deal with profanity, anything that’s obscene and so on, but basically the account for graffiti removal, those funds were cut,” said Mike Ippen, manager of public works. For the fourth year in a row, Saanich council has asked each municipal department – except for public safety – to cut one per cent from their annual budget. This year $30,000 was scrapped that was annually allocated to roads crews to clean up graffiti. “We can’t hold the line in a whole bunch of departments and not have an impact,” said Mayor Frank Leonard. “This was a choice that was made that (was thought) would have the least amount of impact, so we’ll know more as the year progresses.” The silver living, however, is just only public works has been impacted so far. The Saanich parks department will still clean graffiti from parks, solid waste crews still have a budget to clean bus shelters, and power poles and mailboxes are still to be cleaned by their respective owners, B.C. Hydro and Canada Post.
Gray Rothnie
Don Denton/News staff
Caffeine and booze a risky mix Mixing energy drinks and alcohol boosts dangerous behaviour, says UVic researcher Natalie North News staff
A researcher at the University of Victoria is calling out the dangers of consuming energy drinks and alcohol, a widespread practice that poses serious risks to health and public safety, officials say. Kristina Brache, a graduate student in the department of psychology with the Centre for Addictions Research, found
that out of 465 university students, those who combined caffeinated energy drinks with alcohol, or consumed premixed caffeinated alcoholic beverages, were more likely than those who drank alcohol alone to engage in risky behaviour, including driving intoxicated or getting in a vehicle with a drunk driver. Brache, who is the first to publish research of this kind in Canada, wasn’t surprised by the outcome of the study, given similar findings south of the border. “What is important is that even after accounting for intrinsic risk-taking, we’re still finding there’s some difference in this group that combines alcohol and energy drinks,” she said. Reported reasons for combining the substances included a desire to eliminate drowsiness and to stay awake longer.
“(Drinkers) may actually not be able to judge how intoxicated they are ... given that some of the depressant effects have been attenuated,” Brache said, noting lab studies have documented a reported sense of feeling less intoxicated when people consume both substances at the same time. Earlier in the year, Brache, in seeking support for stronger restrictions around the marketing of energy drinks and alcohol consumption, presented her data to the Capital Regional District’s traffic safety commission. Alan Perry, acting chair of the commission, called the talk “eye-opening” and “dismaying.” PLEASE SEE: Few regulations, Page A8
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