Advertising and Alcohol

The BBC reports that the BMA want a ban on the advertising of booze. The reason? because apart from smoking it is the biggest cause of illness and early death. Oh, is it now? Well actually no it isn't. Alcohol doesn't lead you to an early grave or liver failure. This is a scientifically proven fact which the BMA choose to ignore. What leads to an early death & illness is EXCESSIVE drinking, which is a completely different thing. Are they going to ban adverts for cars because driving at excessive speed is the biggest cause of death in the 18-30 age group? The logic is the same. In both cases the behaviour which causes the illness is the problem.

So has advertising ever made me get hammered? Nope, I really don't need much encouragement. Has it made me decide which brand to get hammered on? Nope. Generally if I buy bottled beers for home, we get decent bottled beers, usually German. Why? because they are relatively pure. What would make me cut back on my drinking? Maybe death or serious illness. From this statement, you may get the impression that I'm a total drunk, but no, most of the time I'm pretty restrained. I don't drink lunchtimes as it stops me getting things done. We limit ourselves to a bottle at max a night and I don't drink 2-3 evenings. I do tend to overdo it on Fridays and Saturdays, in the company of friends.

The last medical check I had was pretty good in the liver/blood pressure etc department, although I could lose a couple of stone. There is a lot of talk about advertising of teen targetted alcopops. I don't believe that the advertising changes much, I think it's more to do with spare cash & boredom. If people only did things because of advertising, we wouldn't have millions of people in the country trying illegal drugs.

I suspect that the answer is to mix age groups and family units in pubs. A pub full of 18-25 year olds will be far more prone to wreckless drinking than one with a good mix of ages. The most damaging aspect of human behaviour is peer pressure, a few crusty old boozers in the corner, pouring scorn on drunken youngsters, soon alleviates any peer pressure to emulate them. In fact the worst alcoholic excessess are not in pubs at all, it is cheap supermarket booze on the streets, in homes and in public spaces.

Things like drinks advertising is chosen because it is an easy target. Heaven forbid that they actually try and address the social issues which are the fundamental problem. If you have supermarkets selling own brand, super strength lager for 50p a tin in one town, this will cause more drunk & disorderly behaviour than all of the Martini adverts ever. I guarantee that if a supermarket sells superlager for 50p, they don't need to tell the local wino community, word soon gets out.

Anyone who tells you different either knows nothing about booze culture or why people enjoy getting hammered.