Thank you Cecily for this week’s focus on Big Alcohol’s nefarious, exploitative strategy to encourage the consumption of their Group 1 carcinogenic products. No better example of this will be presented than on Super Bowl Sunday (2/11) when an estimated audience of 115+ million people, including 30 million underaged fans, will be subjected to upwards of 5-10 minutes of clever, funny, seductive ads for beer and other alcoholic beverages. Anheuser-Busch alone will be leading the charge with two and one-half minutes of horses, dogs and patriotic flag waving ads costing them $7 million dollars every 30 seconds to burn alcohol brands into the developing brains of youth and other vulnerable people. Can you imagine the tobacco industry hiding behind “Smoke Responsibly” printed on their packaging? This is what the alcohol industry does that supposedly relieves them of any responsibility for the harm their products cause.
Thank you for making this timely and important point, Michael. Indeed, what we all witness next week will be a spectacle... a perfect example of this predicament. Amazing that all of these years have passed and American households are still largely filled with 2-3 generations watching/celebrating with alcohol while being inundated with high budget ads affirming the benefits of drinking. I trust that someday such ads will be illegal for their influence on minors, following suit in other (more) developed countries including France, Norway, Russia, Ukraine, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Kazakhstan--all which have made alcohol ads on TV and billboards illegal (as they did with cigarettes decades prior before the rest of the world caught on). Corporate interests are so strong in the US, we'll probably be among the last. Sigh.
Thank you Cecily for this week’s focus on Big Alcohol’s nefarious, exploitative strategy to encourage the consumption of their Group 1 carcinogenic products. No better example of this will be presented than on Super Bowl Sunday (2/11) when an estimated audience of 115+ million people, including 30 million underaged fans, will be subjected to upwards of 5-10 minutes of clever, funny, seductive ads for beer and other alcoholic beverages. Anheuser-Busch alone will be leading the charge with two and one-half minutes of horses, dogs and patriotic flag waving ads costing them $7 million dollars every 30 seconds to burn alcohol brands into the developing brains of youth and other vulnerable people. Can you imagine the tobacco industry hiding behind “Smoke Responsibly” printed on their packaging? This is what the alcohol industry does that supposedly relieves them of any responsibility for the harm their products cause.
Thank you for making this timely and important point, Michael. Indeed, what we all witness next week will be a spectacle... a perfect example of this predicament. Amazing that all of these years have passed and American households are still largely filled with 2-3 generations watching/celebrating with alcohol while being inundated with high budget ads affirming the benefits of drinking. I trust that someday such ads will be illegal for their influence on minors, following suit in other (more) developed countries including France, Norway, Russia, Ukraine, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Kazakhstan--all which have made alcohol ads on TV and billboards illegal (as they did with cigarettes decades prior before the rest of the world caught on). Corporate interests are so strong in the US, we'll probably be among the last. Sigh.