You are standing in a modern bar music is playing in the background people are laughing and talking you are sitting at the bar with your friends. The expensively dressed waiter hands you a whisky your friends laugh as you down the whiskey. The popularity, the wealth, the fun. Welcome to the dream of Alcohol. They are all images put out by the advertising companies that the brewers of all these alcohols pay.
It's only natural that children want this popularity fame money etc and so when they see an advert showing this promise of success they jump at the chance. It has been found that 13-16 year olds are the most susceptible to this this form of false marketing aimed specifically at children. In a society that encourages us to escape pain rather than face it alcohol is the favourite anaesthetic Even for grown men and woman, this lie is enticing; the reality is far from this lie.
This very weekend at 11 O'clock in every pub in England the last remaining drunkards who have been drinking themselves to an early grave all week will be ejected out in to the street to attack innocent by-standers police men and each other. Every Saturday the same scene is replayed Vomit, Ear splitting music, drunk driving, grievous, bodily, harm, drugs, rape, stabbing and murder. Welcome to the nightmare of Alcohol this is the reality on the streets. A drink induced mad blur of violence and casual crime
Now lets pretend that you are a 16 year old lying in a puddle of your own vomit after consuming the equivalent of 6 units in a park last night, your friends have long since deserted you in your comatose stupor, it is 3 o'clock in the morning unknown to you your family is looking all over for you, you are liable to hypothermia or assault… the question now is, are you found and sent to your bed to sleep it off or do you stay here huddled under a park bench slipping further away the cold numbing your body until the alcohol or the elements finally pull you through deaths doorway. Unfortunately this is the reality for many children who hide in secluded areas with their friends drinking alcohol away from prying eyes or the police.
Man woman or child this is a dangerous situation that is being encouraged by the adverts of alcohol. Death rates for woman have almost doubled while diseases like cirrhosis of the liver have flourished. Alcohol has now been added to the admittedly large list of things that cause cancer but it will cause more than just cancer. Many diseases have been closely linked to alcohol but the most dangerous problem is if you first start with just a half pint what happens when you stop getting that kick out of drinking a half pint and then on to some of the weaker spirits then the stronger ones. It gets to the point where some people who started drinking a small alcohol in the park at the age of 14 now needs a regular fix of drugs by the time he's 25. It is this chain affect of one extreme after the other that will inevitably lead to his death at the age of 30.
The question is how the child of 14 got into that state of drinking regular amounts of alcohol. what made him buy the alcohol, what drove him to begin drinking the alcohol, maybe it was peer pressure, maybe it was watching others enjoy alcohol, but the one thing that we can be sure of is that whilst watching television almost certainly an alcohol ad came up and plays on his mind. The short sharp truth is that teenagers will always have access to alcohol whether that might be through an older child or an unscrupulous off license owner. The ads for alcohol are everywhere, on the TV, on the internet, even the streets are decked with ads for alcohol, whether it is the subtle sign in the local pub window, or the leviathan billboard boasting the latest vodka, schnapps, or lager.
However alcohol brewers (and their loyal teams of overpaid lawyers) claim that their ads do not target anyone to start drinking but to convince them to switch from one brand to another. This of course cannot be true because if it was we would be changing alcohol frequently, especially because £30,000,000 hangs in the financial balance. Personally I think that if we are going to cut down on alcohol ads we are going to have to aim at sports. Let's think about this, the Heineken cup? Guinness premiership? Carling Cup? And look at the teams themselves, all decked out like walking billboards plastered with ads for all alcohol known to man. Children idolise footballers and what example is it to them to see their hero walking around with CARLSBERG printed across his chest. As children they become used to the idea of drink being linked with sporting success
France has already banned alcohol advertising in all sports, and this from a country of wine lovers. And not only on the pitch, and but many French alcohol brewers have withdrawn from making ads at all, many would love to see the end of Alcohol related ads on the TV in England too, a medical student said “We need to send out a clear message alcohol harms and we want to see an end to the glorification of it on our television screens” TV advertising is also coming under heavy fire from the commission in Brussels, they have found evidence that music videos and sponsorships that prominently show alcohol being used upped by 2 percent for every show that has alcohol in it. Now obviously 2 % doesn't sound much, but imagine how much TV shows a teenager watches and that's not even counting the internet or street ads
Personally I believe that a phased ban should be put into action starting with a watershed for alcohol ads before nine O' clock and with a request that all shows should tone down alcohol use, after these are implemented we could go on to other plans such as a ban on all alcohol ads like their was a ban on smoking ads. And Alcohol warnings similar to those on cigarette packets, finally moving on to a full ban on alcohol usage in movies and shows completely.
Before I leave you though contemplate this fact, if you filled the entire of the Buckingham palace gardens with drunks and their families only a quarter of them would recover.
