MADD Against Advertising Alcohol Essay

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prohibition is a moribund idea, a strong, well-organized anti-alcohol movement marches on. Its strength lies in dozens of church, health, consumer, and citizens' groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving," or MADD. MADD was founded in 1980 to combat problems related to drunk driving. Since its founding, MADD has expanded its mission and vision to include issues like underage drinking and drugged driving. MADD has been instrumental in influencing state governments to raise the legal drinking age to 21 in almost all parts of the United States, and to lowering the legal blood alcohol content for driving and operating equipment. Moreover, MADD believes that advertising alcohol should be banned and their reasoning is founded on four core ideas. Because alcohol advertising targets the most vulnerable populations such as underage drinkers, encourages greater consumption of the product, and sells false beliefs, lawmakers could consider curtailing the entire practice of alcohol advertising. Unfortunately, banning alcohol advertisements is not constitutional and therefore a middle ground solution is more feasible. Therefore, the best way to target the ultimate goal of reducing harm and minimizing underage and other types of harmful drinking in the community is through media literacy, education, and strong controls on the content, placement and substance of the entire marketing campaign.

Empirical evidence and theoretical viewpoints help to clarify the reasons why alcohol advertising should be curtailed. One theory is that "alcohol advertising that reaches children and young adults helps lead them to drink for the first time -- or, if they're experienced underage drinkers, to drink more," (Worland, 2015).

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Empirical evidence supports this stance, demonstrating "that alcohol ads can encourage young people to drink," (MADD, 2015). If advertising did not work, the advertisers would not be spending as much money as they are peddling their products. However, Richards (2015) found that advertising has increased 400% over the last 40 years but the ads have had "little impact on how much wine, beer or liquor people consume," (p. 1). Instead, advertising steers brand choices. This is nevertheless an important issue. If advertising does have an impact on consumer behavior, and enough so to influence brand choices at the very least, then it is clear that advertising alcohol to young people programs them at a young age to purchase certain products based on the way those products are presented in the advertisements. Studies substantiated by MADD (2015) have shown that "the brands of alcohol popular among underage drinkers are the same ones most heavily advertised in magazines read by youth." Young people are vulnerable to the media messages they receive, which is why it is generally unacceptable to target young people in alcohol advertising.

An anecdote helps to illustrate some of the ways alcohol advertising can be curtailed in accordance with the goals and values of MADD, without running into legal or constitutional problems. I knew a boy in high school who used….....

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