Independent expert committee recommends a phasing out of alcohol advertising and sponsorship over a five year time frame

The Independent Expert Committee on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship (IECAAS) released its report today (attached). The main recommendation is to phase out all alcohol advertising and sponsorship over a five year time frame, with the exception of objective product information including pricing.

“This independent committee comprising New Zealand’s acknowledged experts in the area didn’t find any new scientific literature that would counter the Law Commission’s findings of 2010 and therefore has concluded with essentially the same recommendation as the Law Commission” said Prof Jennie Connor, one of the members of the independent expert committee.

Following the government’s rejection of the Law Commission’s recommendations in 2010 it announced it would set up an expert forum to undertake further work. A Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship (MFAAS) was finally set up at the beginning of 2014 and its report was released in the lead up to Christmas 2014 after the general election and after the House had risen for the year.

“IECAAS has carefully followed the work of MFAAS chaired by Mr Graham Lowe and commend it for its recommendation to ban all alcohol sponsorship of sport”, continued Prof Connor.

“This would be an excellent step in phasing out alcohol marketing, but unfortunately falls short of what is optimally required to bring about a reform of the normalised and glorified heavy drinking culture in New Zealand”, added Professor Doug Sellman, another member of IECAAS.

Three specific concerns that IECAAS has of the Ministerial Forum’s report include:

1. It focuses almost entirely on young people’s exposure to marketing when it is the contribution of alcohol marketing to the whole drinking culture of the country that needs to change.

2. The absence of any attempt to restrict alcohol marketing through social media. A special commentary on this important area is included in the IECAAS report by one of NZ’s experts in this area, Professor Antonia Lyons; and

3. Although acknowledging the serious limitations of self-regulation of alcohol advertising by the industry, MFAAS did not take the logical step of recommending an end to this mechanism.

http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1507/IECAAS_report_21_July_2015.pdf

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