Tuesday 8 May 2012
The banning of alcohol adverts
Unprotected sex, death on the roads, murder rates, rape cases, drugs and many other bad things that are destroying our societies are mostly the results of alcohol consumption. Lately South Africa has been drafting a legislation to discontinue all advetisements and the marketing of alcohol. To this point not much has been said on the content of this legislation, but the Business Day has reported that the measure would place a total ban on all alcohol advertisements.
Should this legislation pass, many advertising companies will lose a lot of money, more especially when it comes to the publicity they get by sponsoring well supported activities such as soccer or sports in general. None the less the burning question should be, how will the banning of alcohol adverts be affective in trying to reduce the amount of alcohol consumption? Let us take into consideration the fact that we do not find cigarette adverts in our country, but even so, according to the National Council against Smoking in South Africa alone about 44.000 adults die from smoking each year, and according to the World Health Organization, in the world 1.3 billion people die from smoking each year. Looking at these statistics in our country alone, can we really count on this new legislation to do damage control?
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it would be interesting to know how it is arrived at implementing such legislation, i.e. what informs those in the decision making, a study perhaps? It is no wonder then that our government is rebuked for nepotism: because you wonder about the capability of policy/legislation makers when such legislation is proposed.
ReplyDeleteI would support the proposed legislation. But I believe such legislation should be but part of the solution. There are many factors that contributed to the increased and now out-of-control consumption of alcohol and usage of drugs in our country, advertising of alcohol is one of them.
ReplyDeleteSo if we are to make meaningful strides in this fight then we should begin to look at other factors that cause people to fall into the lifestyle of alcohol consumption and drug usage....Interventions should not be limited to this legislation.
I hate it when advertisers depict alcohol as 'cool'. My reaction always is: it is not 'cool', it is responsible for the breakdown of our society! Hopefully, the banning of alcohol advertisements will take away the 'cool' element that is shoved down our throats. However, this is merely scratching the surface. I fully agree with Lebogang that we should begin to look at other factors that drive people to drink, and start to address these accordingly. A tall order, but one that is critical for the future of this country.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how people always want to bring in the issue of money. Yes, the industry will lose a significant amount of their revenue, but why aren't there studies that show how much money the economy loses due to the effects of alcohol: road accidents, murders, absentism at work and more?
ReplyDeleteAnd to add on to Johanna's sentiments, let me quote Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi: "it's strange that these adverts always use celebrated sports stars and other celebrities as their faces as if their careers were built on alcohol. We know that alcohol has in many cases destroyed people's careers, if not their lives. Alcohol does not build careers, or lives."
So indeed, there is something wrong with alcohol being portrayed as COOL. And these advertisements do just that.