Some of the world's largest alcohol companies are facing a US lawsuit from angry parents worried that adverts are aimed at teenagers.
Diageo, Heineken, Bacardi and Coors are among seven producers named in a lawsuit that accuses them of deliberately targeting young drinkers.
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Health groups link a surge in underage drinking to aggressive advertising.
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The US Federal Trade Commission said in a September report that it "found no evidence of targeting underage consumers" in the alcopop market.
That hasn't deterred the parents and guardians who are demanding the companies pay damages and return profits.
As if the current crusade to put the tobacco industry out of business wasn't enough some people now want to blame their inability to control themselves on the advertising of the alcohol companies. When my town enacted its "smoking ban" in restaurants I told everybody who would listen to me that law like that, on the local, state and federal levels, set a dangerous prescedent for other lawsuits aiming to shift the responsibility from the one using the product to the one producing it. Here's exactly what I said in a post on this website:
Smoking is not a popular habit with most of us, but he next time you vote on a law about smoking start thinking about what they could ban next, it might be something you enjoy.
Already this year we've seen lawsuits against the fast food industry and the gun industry. After these people are done with booze, what's next? Salt? Are we going to go after the salt industry?
Listen, if your kids are out binge drinking it isn't Coors' fault, its your fault. Be a better parent. Kids don't learn about drinking from liquor ads, they learn most of what they know about drinking from their parents or older siblings or other kids at school. If you are a strong parent, set a good example for your children and stay involved in their lives they are not going to have a problem with alcohol. All the advertising in the world can't counteract good parenting.
I'm also not sure how the alcohol industry can be accused of irresponsible advertising. The ads I see always depict people of age enjoying whatever beverage is being hawked. I see loud parties and cool guys with good looking girls. And, at the end of most of them, I see a "21 Means 21" logo or some other voluntary indication that underage people should not consume alcohol.
I would also question the age 21 drinking law in the first place. I think that law should be abolished, or the age should at least be greatly reduced. Right now we have people over in Iraq fighting for this country who could not legally partake of a champagne celebration should we win the war tomorrow. Do you want to know why kids "binge drink?" Its because they're trying to thumb
their noses at their parents. I am not so far removed from my adolescence that I don't understand this. Teenaged kids like to do what they're not supposed to be doing. If we lowered the drinking age the current crop of teens would probably take to partying like nobody's business, but for future generations it would soon become common place. Drinking and partying would still exist, but it would be controlled because its something they're allowed to do anyway. They probably wouldn't keep it a secret from their parents anymore either. No more binge drinking because they don't have to cram all their drinking into a few short hours on a Saturday night.It would also solve a lot of problems with the college part crowd. Most of these kids in college have had to wait their whole lives until the arbitrary age of "21" to drink. Why not let them start at a younger age? Why not have them grow up around alcohol. Let them have a few drinks with their parents while they're teenagers so that they know how to handle it responsibly.
These "nanny" lawsuits sicken me. They seem to imply that the American public has no control over itself. They think that we're all just wide-eyed drones sitting in front of our televisions doing whatever corporate America would have us do. They'd have us believe that these commercials are going to have us mowing down children with submachine guns while binge drinking, smoking a cigars and clotting our veins with Big Mac after Big Mac.
Well that's just not the case. The implication that we only do what commercials tell us to do is insulting.
Millions of Americans are addicted to alcohol, but millions upon millions more use alcohol regularly in a responsible manner. All these lawsuits are going to do is interfere with the alcohol industry's ability to engage in free enterprise.
If the lawsuits succeed the settlement payouts and advertising restrictions are just going to cause the average American to pay more for that Friday six-pack and that, I would say, is a crime.