GALA's petition to Parliament resulted in the Government agreeing to a multi-agency review of the regulatory framework of alcohol advertising and sponsorship. A modified version of this letter was sent to all MPs

A complete rethink on alcohol and youth culture is needed.

It is important that all MP's and interested parties recognise the increasingly serious situation and changes that justify this, especially since Matt Robson's bill is also being discussed. (That suggests raising the drinking age, and has inadequate suggestions about advertising and sponsorship.)

Serious : Statistics for New Zealand and other countries show an alarming increase in:

• youth binge drinking (number of drinks per occasion has doubled in past 10 years)
• young women's alcohol consumption
• hospital admissions for intoxicated 11 - 17 year olds
• teenage drinking: $140 million worth of alcohol per year

Most major newspapers and respectable periodicals (N.Z.Herald, NZ Listener, North and South) have featured major articles of concern .Social and youth workers, police ,Maori wardens, and hospital intensivist doctors have said the same. Monday newspapers regularly feature alcohol violence from all around the county

Changes:

• Alcohol advertising and sponsorship techniques are increasingly sophisticated, and internationally planned as never before. The young are prime targets. Alcohol advertising is not purely factual (prices, product description, availability) but relies strongly on association with sport and social success.
  
• New products like spirits based ready-mixed drinks are aimed specifically at the youth market. The industry even knows the preferences of 11 - 14 and 15 - 17 year old groups.
  
• Vast expenditure promotes and increases a youth alcohol culture through an emphasis on the sporty, humorous, wacky, and sexy, undermining any good intent contained in the industry's voluntary code, which prohibits promoting that alcohol will give social or sexual success. That combination of alcohol with sexuality is internationally agreed, by most Western countries, to be an unfair spin because young people cannot resist it. Sexual enthusiasm and limited judgment are normal for the young.
  
• The code is continually broken by the industry, thus showing it is hypocritical and unfit for self-regulation. "Her butt just walked into my hand-Yeah right!" This actually means :" If you are one of our guys and drink lots of our beer you'll be cool, sexy, have mates, and girls, and be a man."
  
• Increasingly, university research papers show evidence of this influence on youth. Many are on our website, (and see example 2 on Home Page , Prof. Snyder, Connecticut university research. )

Both the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association are calling for more determined action on alcohol advertising

Unless we get at the earliest beliefs of teenagers about the role of alcohol, we will not win this battle. The best slogan to prevent alcohol harm would therefore be :

"It's not just the drinking ,
it's the way we THINK."

We are naïve if we do not recognize the huge continual financial input into keeping and enhancing that youth culture. Advertising and sponsorship are not the only sources of beliefs and attitudes, but any programme which does not tackle their alluring promises is bound to fail.

The alcohol industry asks us to believe that these promote only brand loyalty, and do not affect consumption. They claim that the consumption of each brand is increased, yet the total is not affected! Moreover, much brand identification has entered youth culture, convincing them that more alcohol equals more fun, sexual success, social acceptance and being grown-up. Newer marketing techniques are very sophisticated e.g. internet / e-mail / texting, are designed to be "beneath the parental radar". Young people tell researchers that the advertising, T-shirts' promotions and prizes keep reminding us of our last good booze-up."

There is no doubt that the code against combining sexuality with alcohol advising is flagrantly broken. Visit www.tui.co.nz , then click on "tui albums," then "Miss Tui 2006," then "check out the gallery."

A cycling NZ coach said, (NZ Herald , 3-5-06),"Heavy drinking is endemic to all sporting codes. It's in a way an icon of sport." The liquor industry supports only measures shown by research to be ineffective, such as education campaigns. These cannot work while $50M is spent annually here on advertising which persuades young people of the opposite, and probably as much if not more is spent on sponsorship and other promotions. Sponsorship is heavily associated with sports. .Unless we stop it , and advertising , we are not serious about changing youth culture. Other businesses should be encouraged to take up sports sponsorship.

Self-regulation is a sham; specious reasons are given for turning down complaints. TV advertising time was recently brought forward from 9 pm to 8.30 in spite of the above statistics.

Serious problems require decisive solutions .

The Government is right that we must address the basic problem of attitudes to drinking. Returning the purchase age to 20, limiting advertising to after 10 pm and an educational campaign don't go far enough. This is because young people will always respond better to the irresponsible promises of social and sexual success from alcohol advertising.

No-one wants to interfere with moderate pleasure, but alcohol harm is tragic for many drinkers. Worse, it involves all of us, as in road crashes, domestic and street violence, suicide, home invasion and rape. The damage is greater than that of tobacco and all people deserve at least as much protection.

A ban on advertising, (as in Norway and Sweden), and gradually on sponsorship, may also be only part of the answer . But what it would do is stop the conflicting messages and mean that we have done everything possible to create a safer community. It would demonstrate to the young (and to everyone ), that alcohol use (although enjoyable, like the use of a motor vehicle) can be a very serious matter.

<Next> Advertisements push up youth drinking (Snyder, University Research, Connecticut.)

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