A report on alcohol advertising and sponsorship [pdf] is calling for a complete ban at sporting events, Radio New Zealand reports.
The Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship said the link between alcohol and sport was leading young people to drink, and drink heavily. Its report made 14 recommendations, including a complete ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport, and advertising or sponsorship around all broadcast sporting events.
Association of Advertisers chief executive Lindsay Mouat said there was no evidence that advertising and sponsorship played any part in making young people drink. “If you look at alcohol-related harm, particularly with regard to youth, what drives that is what their peers are doing, what their family and friends are doing. The drinking culture that is surrounding them … alcohol and sponsorship have very little to do with that.”
However, National Addiction Centre director Doug Sellman said there was plenty of evidence. “There have been studies showing that children know who the alcohol sponsors are and they know that they are alcohol companies.”
“It's the amount of exposure. Over and over and over again. There's a normalisation of alcohol and a glamorisation of alcohol that sets up a socialising of our young people to think that alcohol is not a potentially dangerous product,” he said.
