The effect of the new traffic law on drinking and driving in São Paulo, Brazil

Valdir Ribeiro Campos, Rebeca de Souza e Silva, Sérgio Duailibi, José Florentino dos Santos, Ronaldo Laranjeira, Ilana Pinsky

Alcohol is a major source of harm to public health and safety and should not be treated as an innocuous product and subject to the laws of the market (Caetano and Laranjeira, 2006). It could be argued that widespread availability represents a fundamental component of public health and safety (Babor et al., 2010; Edwards et al., 1994). Contrary to the trend in economically developed countries, alcohol consumption has increased in developing countries (Room et al., 2002).

The evolution of alcohol consumption per capita in 137 countries from 1970 through 1990, found that consumption increased 74.5% in Brazil (World Health Organization, 1999).  1-s2.0-S0001457512002357-main.pdf