Alcoholism is an issue which has been on the central debate in various forums across nations. Alcoholism is an addiction to the consumption of the alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency. Different parties argue that advertisement plays a role in enhancing alcohol addiction among children while another group believes there are no relationships between the advertisement and underage alcohol consumption and its subsequent effects. Therefore, the essay aims at determining the relationship between the alcoholic beverages and the underage drinking habits as well as their subsequent effects in the entire society.
Alcoholic beverages advertisements are harmful to the society since it makes the children aware of beer drinking at an early age. For instance, the commercial advertisement on TV leads to a favorable belief about drinking in children between the ages of 10 to 12 years, a process which leads to the development of drinking habit in their adult age. On the study done by Henry Saffer while comparing the motor-vehicle deaths with the quarterly measures for broadcast advertising in 75 media markets over a three-year period. It was found that a ban on broadcast alcohol advertising would save 2,000 to 3,000 people yearly from death due to alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes. It thus an evident that these advertisements have adverse effects on the society regardless of the efforts beverage companies put to research on these side effects and their subsequent remedies, they still provides incomplete information about the dangers of tobacco and spent billions for promotional purposes. For instance, it is evident that these companies spent over 2 billion dollars per year to improve their promotion on alcoholic beverages promotions. It is thus very right to condemn the promotion of the alcohol drinking among children who have not attained 18 years of age since it makes children to adopt certain behaviors which can influence their thoughts and judgments.
Even though there is an argument that the children who have attained 18 years of age have an opportunity and right to sign contracts, get married, have an abortion and to vote, they still need a direction on whether to drink or not. Besides, some critics also argue that in certain situations, it is not easy to differentiate between an ad and someone enjoying their drink in performance or a movie. However, the truth is that underage consumption of alcoholic drink should be shunned by the society since it trains the children to adopt the bad behaviors which are related to alcoholism at a very tender age. Besides, this will make them not to be responsible young adults who are ready to marry and take care of the family as well as active participation in the development of the economy at large. Even though there might be some challenges as far as control of alcoholism among children proves to be a bit challenging, there is still need for the development of various strategies and taking an appropriate action to reduce the number of affected children and people in the society for the betterment of the future.
