Would you support a *complete* ban on alcohol advertising?

Insect Overlord

Cavehill Red wrote: »

I'd be inclined to specifically target certain drinks too - high alcohol beer and cider, fortified 'tonic' wine and industrial vodka among them.

LOL. Just no.

1ZRed

If this were to go ahead the budweiser horses would be out of work and it'd be off to the beef factory for them

Cavehill Red

I'd support a ban on tv and sports sponsorship only

Insect Overlord wrote: »

LOL. Just no.

It's always great to encounter a carefully considered, reasoned argument.

Chuck Stone

I'd support a ban on all tv advertisements only

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Only if they either drink to excess or drink beyond their means.

Well you could argue that spending anything on booze is beyond the means of those least able to afford it but that's a bit paternalistic.

Smoking has declined to a certain level and levelled off. The main factors that I identify in its decline are a) it's universal bad for health

That's a fact we know now because of public health research, the stigmatising of smoking by banning advertising, and public health campaigns.

Longitudinal studies consistently suggest that exposure to tobacco advertising and promotion is associated with the likelihood that adolescents will start to smoke.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

b) the smoking ban in public places and c) the development of NRT and vaping technologies.

These helped but the decline was well in motion long before these measures were taken especially vaping.

None of these are replicable in the context of alcohol. I don't think advertising plays a significant role there at all, in fact. Much more important are societal issues like the so-called central role of pubs in Irish socialising.

I stopped drinking for about 6 months a couple of years ago and I couldn't believe the amount of alcohol advertising on the TV. Sport is absolutely drenched in alcohol advertising and kids are watching sports with their parents. When you talk about societal issues surely you must consider the effect of ubiquitous alcohol advertising?

There is the additional issue of product confidence. Would you buy a bottle of unspecified alcohol from someone in the street?

If I was into spirits and the price of vodka was twice the price? Hell yeah - but I'd be careful about my supplier (this is normal in the illegal drug trade)

It's already profitable to smuggle.

For booze? I had no idea.

The problem is no one will buy in a black market context.

One thing you can be sure of is if the price crept inexorably up the black market (and associated costs) would expand.

If it came to pubs and off-licences crossing the border to stock up, you'd have a problem, but an easily solved one.

Just tonight I heard James Reilly saying he was discussing a cross-border synchronized minimum price on the radio in the car. For sure, increasing the price here and not in the north would be idiotic .

joetoad

If they banned alcohol advertisements what would I masturbate to?

orestes

joetoad wrote: »

If they banned alcohol advertisements what would I masturbate to?

MTV hits?

joetoad

orestes wrote: »

MTV hits?

Nah, there all made of plastic these days.

Anyone want a cup of tea? or a hot whiskey. Is that advertising alcohol? I'm sorry OP but ur deluded

Chuck Stone

I'd support a ban on all tv advertisements only

joetoad wrote: »

Anyone want a cup of tea?

Would love a few beers.

joetoad

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Would love a few beers.

Drinkin ice cold bottles, their soooooo nice

Chuck Stone

I'd support a ban on all tv advertisements only

joetoad wrote: »

Drinkin ice cold bottles, their soooooo nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbYx6hevoQ

Sunnyisland

Alcohol advertising is all too often aimed at a 15/25 audience, Exposing our young people to alcohol at this very impressionable age can have many different effects on their future habits and mind set.

It can forever change the path of their lives by altering the way they view these addictive products.The lore can pull them into thinking that those products are the driving force that brings good, productive, and happy lives. No matter how far from reality these assumptions are,

And as been previously pointed out, Alcohol kills more people in Ireland than all the illegal drugs combined,including heroin & cocaine. The least we can do is ban the glamorising of Alcohol and actually increase signifinaly the dangers of it.

Fr_Dougal

I'd support a ban on tv and sports sponsorship only

We should ban tobacco advertising, everyone will give up smoking then....oh wait...

Sunnyisland

Fr Dougal wrote: »

We should ban tobacco advertising, everyone will give up smoking then....oh wait...

I am not saying anybody should give up anything,nor have I read here anyone else saying it,If people want to smoke & drink that's always there choice, As far as I can gather the OP is saying that the advertising of alcohol as a glamorous risk free way to enjoy your self should be stopped.

The damage that alcohol abuse can do to one,s body & mind and society as a whole should be well documented and educated to people from a very young age,We are gone well past the stage that falling around stupid drunk with all its follow on consequences is the cool way to be,every week.

orestes

realies wrote: »

Alcohol advertising is all too often aimed at a 15/25 audience, Exposing our young people to alcohol at this very impressionable age can have many different effects on their future habits and mind set.

All too often at a 15/25 audience? I can't think of a single alcohol advertisement that is specifically directed towards a younger target market, even the WKD ads are built around a group of guys who are closer to 30 than they are to 20. Youngsters are exposed to alcohol abuse at home or at family functions far more than they are on television. Did you first have a drink because it was something you had seen all the grown ups do when they were having fun or because you saw an ad on tv?

realies wrote: »

It can forever change the path of their lives by altering the way they view these addictive products.The lore can pull them into thinking that those products are the driving force that brings good, productive, and happy lives. No matter how far from reality these assumptions are,

It can forever change the path of their lives? Oh come on, in a country that is so pervasively soaked in drinking on pretty much every level you think that ads on tv are what are giving youngsters the idea that drinking is cool? Whatever reasons people might have for banning advertising, saying that it is responsible for young people starting to drink in Ireland is just completely melodramatic nonsense.

realies wrote: »

And as been previously pointed out, Alcohol kills more people in Ireland than all the illegal drugs combined,including heroin & cocaine. The least we can do is ban the glamorising of Alcohol and actually increase signifinaly the dangers of it.

Now this is a more reasonable and practical point. Alcohol enables lots and lots of people to have a good time, but alcohol abuse is definitely very dangerous and that is something that people need to be made more aware of, which I think that the current Drink Aware ads are a good start at since they don't just focus on a "DRINKING IS EVIL!" approach but try to inform people to drink at their own pace, not get themselves into dangerous situations while drunk, etc., things that most people can actually relate to rather than just being yelled at by do-gooders (as they will see it).

Snickers Man

Dostoevsky wrote:

Personally, on this issue I'd be more influenced by the lobbying of medical professionals who encounter alcohol abuse than I would be by the lobbying of the alcohol industry, or the silence of a media which would lose millions in advertising revenue if such a ban came into place.

It's this sort of framing of the argument that does my head in: it assumes that the only interested parties are on the one hand, the alcohol industry (publicans, drinks companies, retailers) and on the other the caring medical professions who expect that the mere plebs will do whatever they the doctors tell them.

To hell with that. This is an issue of choice that affects every adult in the country. We have as much right to air our views and to be heard on this than any suit with a stethoscope.

For the record, I have no connection whatsoever with any section of the drinks, licensing or hospitality industries and it should be patently obvious that I am not a doctor.

Now, to your points:

I would wholeheartedly support any measures designed to make our alcohol culture more like that of France.

My only proviso would be that the medical profession would then shut up and say "our work here is done. We've got what we demanded. Now we will go back to doing what we do best: examining people's blood and piss to find out what's wrong with them and treat them accordingly."

(Some chance of that)

Why would I welcome a French style alcohol culture here? They drink more than us for a start. The average French person over the age of 15 drinks a litre more of pure alcohol per year than their Irish counterparts. 12.3l in France compared to 11.3 in Ireland.

The source for this is the famous Irish Goverment "Steering Group on Alcohol and Substance Misuse" report, much beloved by the price hikers and access controllers.

That's Fact 1.

Here's Fact 2 (:P)

Alcohol is a lot cheaper in France, and a damn sight more available too. According to figures produced by the World Health Organisation pertaining to 2008 (a few years ago I know but then some of the "interesting articles" linked to in the OP go back to 2004) good beer is on average 68% more expensive in Ireland than in France; spirits 42% more expensive and table wine a whopping 116% more expensive here than in France.

Ireland has admittedly cheap crap beer, Dutch Gold etc that is on average 2 per cent cheaper than in France, according to the same WHO figures.

They have a better attitude to drinking alcohol in France than here. (This is just my opinion. I'm loth to call it Fact 3) They use it as a means of social intercourse and an excellent accompaniment to a meal. They don't indulge just for the purpose of getting pissed, as we tend to do.

Make Ireland's drinking culture more like that of France? I'll drink to that.

Insect Overlord

Cavehill Red wrote: »

It's always great to encounter a carefully considered, reasoned argument.

Decent beer is expensive enough already without your idea of throwing an extra levy on it. Nobody buys, for example, Trappistes beers just to get polluted drunk.

Sounds

I'd support a ban on all tv advertisements only

I know this is an old post, anyway... don't like seeing serious problems being forgotten.

There's such a thing as having a drink and a good time, and there's also not being able to control yourself because of drink.
This is self destruction, and affecting the people around you if you've got a family that have to deal with a real alcoholic, daily.

I remember when my dad use to work shifts years ago, I opened the door to go to school a few times, he'd be in the flowerbed!
Funny but that's how it was.. the stuff I've seen in films, I could have made my own movie, I escaped through music lol
I kinda felt that he earned it and he was entitled to do what ever he wanted with it, pretty normal childhood.

Ask any doctor how many patients they've treated because of alcohol related illnesses, would be in the thousands.
Not to mention all the other establishments that were set up to help people with alcohol problems, it's addictive.

Personally I think more of these issues are connected to spirits, but also a lot of problems with beer/larger etc.
I sometimes get a craving for a drink, when I see an ad on TV, their ad worked, made me feel like I want a beer.
That always went un-noticed, seemed normal all these years. like it's ok to grab a beer/spirit every now and then.
But these days I'd drink a glass of coke with ice to try kill the craving, that's how I fight it, doesn't always work

I think from personal experience with friends and family, alcohol, beer, spirits can and will destroy your mind/body if
you're unlucky enough to be an alcoholic who can't do without a drink/fix, whatever you want to call it, like a drug addiction.

It's not right to see ads telling people how great their product is and how many people celebrate their product.
But what about the people that lost family, or a friend because their alcohol problem got too out of control.

TV advertisements, self proclaiming you brought the whole nation together, build rail roads me hole.
The whole nation would still be drinkin something as long as it tasted good and got them drunk, whatever brand it was.

I'm not against having a drink and a laugh, look at this post, I can't support something that has caused so much damage to many people.
The same way we got cigarette adverts banned, because, plain and simple, they will kill you, or someone close to you.

Alcohol can kill you too, can destroy families, for those reasons I'd support a ban on advertising alcohol on TV.

Hope you're never that unlucky, enjoy the ads while they last, and try drink responsibly!

Tarzana2

orestes wrote: »

Advertising isn't done to gain sales

:D:D:D

Boom_Bap

Closed as tis a Zombie.