October 30, 2013\u00a0 On October 7-9, the city of Seoul, Korea served as host for the third Global Alcohol Policy Conference.\u00a0 At the conference, more than 850 participants from 45 countries discussed the current state of science-based alcohol policies, recent successes in the alcohol policy field, the prospects for improvement, and the challenges facing alcohol policy advocates.<\/p>\n
One important theme running through the conference was the role of the global alcohol industry in maintaining and intensifying alcohol-related harm through its tactics and practices.<\/p>\n
Dr. Thomas Babor of the University of Connecticut, for example,\u00a0 stressed reasons to doubt the sincerity of the global alcohol industry in its insistence to be part of the solution to alcohol problems.\u00a0 This is particularly true, given that the strategy of the multi-national alcohol producers and their industry associations and social aspects organizations is clearly to increase overall consumption \u2013 a strategy which is inimical to public health and public safety.\u00a0 Additionally, the industry clings to \u201cself-regulation\u201d \u2013 a strategy Babor described as \u201cspectacularly ineffective\u201d in actually preventing industry misconduct or associated alcohol-related harms.<\/p>\n
Other plenary speakers and workshop presenters illustrated specific cases of alcohol industry efforts either to prevent evidence-based policies from taking effect or to render such policies ineffective.\u00a0 Dr. Ronald Laranjeira (Professor of the Federal University of S\u00e3o Paulo [UNIFESP], Brazil; Director of Alcohol and Drug Research Unit of UNIAD) described the almost total lack of functional alcohol policies in much of Latin America.\u00a0 He called attention to the suspension of a national ban on the sales of alcohol beverages in soccer stadia during the forthcoming 2014 World Soccer Cup in Brazil.\u00a0 The removal of the ban was forced by the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internacionale de Football Association (FIFA), linked to that organization\u2019s multimillion-dollar contract with Anheuser-Busch InBev\u2019s Budweiser brand.\u00a0 Similarly, Dr. Evelyn Gillan,\u00a0 Chief Executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland (AFS), Scotland\u2019s national alcohol charity, addressed the tactics of the Scotch Whiskey Association to work to prevent or delay implementation of the Scottish Government\u2019s Minimum Unit Pricing policy.<\/p>\n
In South Africa \u2013 and the rest of that continent \u2013 multinational brewer SABMiller has made clear its intention to \u201cgrow per capita beer consumption.\u201d Dr. Charles Parry, Director of the South African Medical Research Council\u2019s Alcohol & Drug Abuse Research Unit (ADARU), described the efforts of SABMiller and other alcohol operators to resist a proposed total ban on alcohol advertising.\u00a0 Specifically, he listed the various arguments marshaled by industry groups and related associations and media outlets \u2013 all of which should be familiar to public health advocates vying with health-harming industries:<\/p>\n
\u009fCasting doubt on the underlying science (the \u201cscientific evidence is not uniform\u201d) * Attacking public health advocates (the Minister of Health is a \u201cNanny from Hell,\u201d and his allies are akin to the Nazi and Apartheid regimes)<\/p>\n
* \u009fWarning of the \u201cunintended consequences\u201d of regulating industries, including dire economic consequences<\/p>\n
* Claiming that the measures would be disproportionately burdensome to small businesses (\u201churt the little guy\u201d).\u00a0 (Dr. Parry noted that this claim begs the<\/p>\n
question:\u00a0 if this measure is so beneficial to big business, why would SABMiller raise such vigorous opposition?)<\/p>\n
Finally, one of the workshops at GAPC 2013 specifically addressed alcohol industry influences in the alcohol policy process.\u00a0 During that session, Professor Jeff Collin (Director of the Global Public Health Unit at the University of Edinburgh) called out the disconnect between the British government\u2019s ostensible embrace of a multi-sectoral approach to global health in its \u201cHealth is Global\u201d framework \u2013 and the reality of its trade policy, including the active promotion of hard liquor as a key export.\u00a0 Sven-Olov Carlsson, International President of IOGT International, compared the tactics of Big Alcohol to those of Big Tobacco and found many parallels, including the creation of front groups to \u201cfill the policy space.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka\u2019s Shakyra Nanayakkara detailed the various legal maneuvers utilized by alcohol industry interests to undermine that nation\u2019s National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (NATA) Act \u2013 which prohibits the sale of alcohol and tobacco to person under the age of twenty-one.\u00a0 These maneuvers include legal challenges and infiltrating the NATA training panel with industry-funded lawyers.<\/p>\n
A key takeaway of the conference is that understanding the current gap between alcohol policy science and alcohol policy practice is impossible without taking into consideration the machinations of an industry which profits handsomely from underage and excessive adult alcohol consumption.<\/p>\n
Thus, reducing the global burden of alcohol-related harm will require advocates to effectively counter that industry influence \u2013 through reliance on the best science, savvy media advocacy, and robust grassroots organization.<\/p>\n
Source: www.corporationsandhealth.org\u00a0 30th October 2013<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" October 30, 2013\u00a0 On October 7-9, the city of Seoul, Korea served as host for the third Global Alcohol Policy Conference.\u00a0 At the conference, more than 850 participants from 45 countries discussed the current state of science-based alcohol policies, recent successes in the alcohol policy field, the prospects for improvement, and the challenges facing alcohol […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drug-specifics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}