CHICAGO (Reuters) - Young adults as well as teenagers drink more under the influence of advertising for alcoholic beverages, researchers said on Monday.
A survey of young people aged 15 to 26 found that for each additional alcohol advertisement viewed per month, there followed a 1 percent rise in the average number of drinks consumed, said study author Leslie Snyder of the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
The study's findings counter industry arguments that only adult drinkers heed alcohol advertising, Snyder wrote in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
In the study -- released around the New Year's holiday that is often associated with toasts and excessive imbibing -- the researchers conducted four rounds of interviews between 1999 and 2001 with a group of young people, with the initial 1,872 subjects selected randomly.
Isn't this how the assault on "big tobacco" started? With studies showing how it was all Joe Camel's fault that kids smoked and not the fault of their parents who weren't involved enough to monitor their children's behavior?
Does alcohol advertising increase the likelihood that kids will drink? Maybe. Does that mean we should combat underaged drinking by placing limits on the type of alcohol advertising allowed? Absolutely not. Instead we should encourage better parenting or (more effectively, in my humble opinion) we should remove booze from its status as the rebellion drug of choice for America's kids by decriminalizing its use for them. Sure kids would probably keep drinking, but they're already doing that now.
At least it if were legal they wouldn't be as likely to sneak around and get roaringly drunk behind the backs of their parents.