Introduction
The major reason for the call to outlaw advertising of alcohol is its abuse. The term abuse can have various meanings from one section of society to another. For example, to a college student, drinking to the extent of vomiting uncontrollably is abuse. In religious groups, even a taste of alcohol is termed to be illegal. In a family setting, abuse of alcohol occurs when couples are in constant strife. Most societies have however illegalized underage drinking.
According to a WHO Charter, all states have the responsibility of ensuring that all children are raised in an environment secluded from negative influences and consequences of liquor consumption. This includes the promotion of these beverages. For a better understanding of this, the agreement suggests that all states exercise strict control on adverts addressed to young people.
Main Body
However, reports from the U.S and elsewhere in the world indicate that beer companies spend a lot of money on promotional activities either directly or indirectly. The activities usually take the form of organizing sports contests, academic sponsorship, music concerts, or support to charity organizations. To make matters even worse, most of the alcohol adverts tend to neglect references to the bad effects associated with the consumption making it look like an alternative to soft drinks.
Most alcohol adverts especially on TV use animation, music, comedy, and celebrities to pass across their message. Research has established that this technique is more appealing to teenagers and adolescents who believe that the adverts target them. Some of the adverts also associate drinking with excellent and sporting success hence influencing the emotionally sensitive young minds. A recently concluded research indicated that most young people will recognize many beer brands labels that the portraits of their former presidents. This is because alcoholic beverages ads are more popular than the patriotism associated with the recognition of the national heroes by the younger generations.
Other than pulling underage people into excessive consumption, econometric techniques have indicated the close relations between alcohol adverting and the rise of accidents. An example is the lifting of a ban on television and radio advertising of spirits after 1996 which led to the rise in road accidents to about 3000 annually. This heavy loss of life results from cases where individuals attending social parties involving alcoholic drinks ignore the role of designated drivers. Some of the companies run adverts which can at times make drivers lose concentration from the steering wheel to thoughts of pleasure associated with alcohol drinking leading to road accidents.
Medical researchers in New Zealand have categorized alcohol as a psychoactive drug. This is due to its ability to alter the mind by making one be subconscious. In this state, one can unconsciously engage in some dangerous activities including sexual immorality thus increasing risks to STDs and HIV infections. The subliminal state can create physical body injuries while walking due to the inability of maintaining a good body posture. This has led some religious groups to blame alcohol advertisements for promoting promiscuity and moral decay in societies, hence support for the ban on alcohol.
On the other hand, breast cancer is greater among women who drink than those who abstain. The other health risk among these individuals is complete liver damage translating into hepatitis C. Therefore, patients found with the illness must quit drinking completely. All these health problem cases will continue to be on the rise as long as alcohol consumption increases through advertisements in the national mass media.
Despite all these misgivings, breweries and advertising industries argue that alcoholic drinks are legal products contributing tax to the economy. To them, alcohol is legal and should be advertised. They claim that were the advertisements to be banned, it would greatly affect businesses and the media. They also say that outlawing the drink is not justifiable because advertising is only concerned with promoting an individual product’s sales and that there’s no proof to relate the adverts and the number of harms associated with alcohol consumption. This means that advertising is not concerned with new membership recruitment into becoming drinkers of a particular brand but just raises the sales within the existing customers. The other point is that successful advertisement will increase the company’s market share at the expense of fellow competitors’ share index in the business.
In siding with the advertisement and brewery industries, those opposing the ban on liquor drinks adverts have indicated that alcohol consumption has many health benefits if used correctly. One of the positive impacts of alcohol consumption on the body is that it reduces the risk of a heart attack. Cardiovascular health improves by lowering heart disease or stroke based on the sick-quitter theory. From this point of view, it is right to argue that the liquor drinks’ advertisement is less like promoting a curative remedy but not illicit and abusive drinks.
The health benefits of alcohol mostly occur to moderate drinkers leading to a longer life than abstainers or those drinking a lot. In addition to a reduction in the possibility of a heart attack, consumption of alcohol reduces the likelihood of hypertension, Alzheimer’s, common cold, and high blood pressure. Other possible conditions minimized by moderated alcoholic drinking include stress, osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Therefore, moderated drinking can be important for healthy living just like eating a well-balanced diet and regular exercising. Therefore, imposing a ban on advertising of such important products in the human lifestyle, just because some people misuse it, will amount to increasing the citizens’ susceptibility to poor health and lower life expectancy.
The rise in alcohol adverts appearing on different television channels in Colombia led to increased survivability among patients with heart attacks, who admitted to being moderate drinkers. According to medical research, moderate consumption of alcohol throughout the year reduces the risk of dying in case of serious myocardial infection, and men drinking frequently after a cardiac attack are not likely to experience it again unlike the none-drinkers. These kinds of gain will be lost if the ban on the advertisement of alcohol is enforced. The reason for this is that liquor drinks help in controlling and repairing damages in the heart following an attack.
Despite condemnation for evil deeds in society, alcohol consumption can also offer solutions to people suffering from obesity by its ability to accelerate the libido of the blood hence destroying bad cholesterol as well as improving the blood clotting ability-checking bleeding in case of injury. Therefore, the ban on alcohol will deny the public to access different brands of products important for their daily health. (Biays & Wershoven 232)
Conclusion
Though alcohol has its benefits to the human body, its side effects far outweigh the benefits. Alcohol advertisements should not be carried out during prime time on national broadcasters. The picture portrayed by these adverts that one will feel good after taking beer should also be discouraged at all costs. Underage people should also not be allowed to play an active role in these campaigns. The ban on underage drinking should be enforced in every state and those who ignore it prosecuted. Beer companies should also show the negative side of drinking in order to allow people to make informed choices. At the end of the day, we should ask ourselves if we want to build a nation of working people or drinking people. If we evaluate everything, all of us will conclude and with good reason that alcohol advertising should be banned.
Works Cited
Biays, John, & Wershoven, Carol. Along these Lines: Writing Paragraphs and Essays.5th ed.Prentice Hall, 2008.