Culture Clash of Alcohol; Health versus Sales

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 5:13 pm

There is a culture clash between alcohol marketing and public health aspirations

It is of no coincidence that a number of recent Harm Reduction Digests have addressed the issue of the reduction of alcohol-related harm.

Despite the dominant focus on illicit drug use in the popular discourse, alcohol remains Australia’s number one drug problem, as it is in many other developed countries.

Munro and de Wever use the ‘four Ps’ of marketing:

product,
price,
place and
promotion, to critique the two decades industry self-regulation of alcohol marketing.

They conclude that if we are going to develop policies which effectively change Australian drinking culture to reduce alcohol-related harm, we need first to accept that the alcohol industry and the health field have separate and conflicting interests.

Research; Geoffrey Munro & Johanna de Wever. Drug and Alcohol Review, Volume 27, Issue 2 March 2008 , pages 204 â€“ 211. Culture clash alcohol marketing and public health aspirations