Alcohol and tobacco manufacturers are knowingly producing advertisements appealing to young people, according to professionals.
That indictment was made by several speakers at a conference called “Keeping Children Alcohol Free” held Sept. 12 at the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham. The gathering was sponsored by the American Council on Alcohol Problems (ACAP).
“When you look at those ads, they are targeting kids,” said George Van Komen, president of ACAP and chairman of the Alcoholic Policy Coalition in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Ironically, manufacturers of alcohol and tobacco products do not need revenues from teenagers to realize a profit. But several speakers at the conference indicated the manufacturers target youth to make them lifelong users of their products.
“I guarantee that those products can be sold effectively without targeting young people,” said David Reynolds, a Birmingham physician and clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dan Ireland, executive director of ACAP and Alabama Citizens Action Program (ALCAP), said teenagers drink more often when they begin at a young age.
“They [advertisers] are after their future market,” Ireland said.
Maxine Wheeler, training coordinator with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s Alcohol Awareness Program, said beer and tobacco companies go after teenagers with advertisements that suggest use of their products can improve young people’s social lives and help them deal with their problems.
To that end, Wheeler and Jan Byrne, education coordinator with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s Alcohol Awareness Program, said the media plants ideas about alcohol use in teenagers’ minds. Byrne said teenagers can readily identify slogans and commercials associated with alcohol and tobacco products.
“They’ll snap them off, one after another,” Byrne said.
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