Has anyone ever visited drinkaware.ie or is it just a self regulation token gesture

Zubeneschamali

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

Could you elaborate on how it's a smokescreen, why is it ineffective, is it actually ineffective and what government regulations they are attempting to stop that this is likely to have any effect on?

Have a read of this:

Strategic Task Force on Alcohol, 2nd report

Drinkaware was set up, and then a tonne of lobbying money spent, to bury that report and the associated legislation:

More recent research reports that alcohol sports sponsorship has an effect similar to alcohol advertising. As noted by Babor et al., alcohol sports sponsorship links masculinity, alcohol and sport and provides promotional opportunities that go beyond passive images of alcohol advertisements.
This serves to embed alcohol products into the everyday activities of the consumer, through title name, sports results, commentary and discussions of the sporting events, which in turn taps into and reinforces cultural identity.
Control promotion of alcohol - STFA Recommendations
R2.1 Ensure the proposed legislation to reduce the exposure of children to alcohol advertising, sponsorship and promotions is enacted without delay.
R2.2 Recommend national sporting bodies, with high youth participation, to develop a proactive strategy to find an alternative to alcohol sponsorship

Brussels Sprout

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

Could you elaborate on how it's a smokescreen, why is it ineffective, is it actually ineffective and what government regulations they are attempting to stop that this is likely to have any effect on?

• Introduction of minimum pricing (as has been touted for years)
• Increased taxation to punitive levels (as in Norway)
• Ban on advertising of sporting events (as in France)

The drinks industry want to oppose all of these measures so as to prevent a hit to their revenues.

The argument for all of the above is that alcohol is having a major negative effect on our society and in particular to our younger people. When the PR people from the drink's companies come on to oppose any potential measures or lobby politicians they can point to drinkaware.ie as 'proof' that they support responsible drinking.

The dirty little secret is that responsible drinking is not good for sales. Diageo and the likes can't be seen to support it though so instead they create this site that nobody visits with meaningless slogans like "Know the one that's one too many" while spending hundreds of times that amount on advertising their products to the same people.

Imagine if the tobacco companies had done the same back in the day!

The whole scenario is ludicrous. I'd like to see any any drinkaware ads on TV have a voice-over in the final 2 seconds that state that it is a creation of the drinks industry (like US presidential adverts) as opposed to the writing that is on the bottom of the screen that most people don't bother to read.