Media RELEASE - Alcohol Healthwatch
For immediate release – 13 November 2009

Time to cut the ties between alcohol sponsorship and sport

Alcohol Healthwatch is supporting calls to eliminate alcohol industry sponsorship of sports and sports people.

In the latest edition of the international scientific journal Addiction, researchers call on legislators and policy makers to take a precautionary approach and eliminate such sponsorship.

The researchers also say the alcohol industry should have to prove its sponsorship causes no harm, rather than communities and other groups having to prove harm, as is currently the case.

Alcohol Healthwatch Director Rebecca Williams says stopping the constant barrage of alcohol promotion must be an essential part of efforts to reduce alcohol-related harm.

“Alcohol advertising is shown to encourage earlier and heavier drinking.

“For example, in a study published in 2008, researchers Kypros Kypri and Kerry O’Brien made the specific link between alcohol sponsorship and heavier drinking among sports people in New Zealand.”

Rebecca Williams says the alcohol industry aggressively promotes alcohol, while at the same time actively advocating against effective measures to address the harm it causes.

“The cost of this alcohol-related harm, over $5.3 billion dollars and 1000 lives per year, is currently met by the community at large. It’s time the industry picked up its share.”

She says an increase in taxes on alcohol could provide alternative sponsorship funds to sporting and other recreational and cultural organisations currently funded by alcohol interests.

ENDS

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