Alcohol Policy Information System

Public policies that affect alcohol consumption and cannabis consumption can influence a range of health and social outcomes. Advances in scientific research on the effects of various alcohol and cannabis policies depend on well-measured indicators of these policies. Research in this important area has been constrained by limitations on the availability and quality of policy information. Initiatives to provide reliable information on public policies relating to alcohol and cannabis must contend with the complexity of these policies. Laws, regulations, and jurisprudence address myriad aspects of beverage and cannabis production, packaging, transportation, marketing, taxation, sales, and consumption, as well as the financing and delivery of substance abuse treatment and preventive services. Many of these policies are established by governments at all levels (Federal, State, county, and municipal). The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) awarded the original contract to The CDM Group, under contract number HHSN275201300002C, in September 2001 to provide authoritative, detailed, and comparable information on alcohol-related public policies in the United States at both the State and Federal levels. The Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS) web site (http://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov) is an online resource that provides public access to this detailed information on a wide variety of alcohol and cannabis public policies. Intended primarily as a tool for researchers, APIS features compilations and analyses of alcohol and cannabis statutes and regulations. APIS is designed to simplify the process of ascertaining the state of the law for studies of the effects and effectiveness of alcohol and cannabis policies. APIS currently provides annually-updated information on 36 specific policy topics, including summary descriptions, maps, detailed comparison tables, and the specific dates on which provisions became or ceased to be effective. For most policy topics, APIS coverage begins January 1, 1998 and extends through the endpoint established at the latest update. A list of current APIS policy topics is provided in Table 1. Detailed information is available through the APIS web site. APIS inaugurated its public web site in June 2003. Since that time, it has been updated numerous times to add new policy topics, update information on policy topics previously covered, add new features and capabilities, and clarify or correct previously published information. In some cases, the annual updating of policy topics that had previously appeared on APIS was discontinued for budgetary reasons. A complete list of changes to the site is available through the Change Log link on the APIS home page.