Plain Packaging For Alcohol: A Work In Progress

You may recall an article early this month detailing how 'scientists' have identified a link between glass shape and the speed at which individuals drink alcohol. In customary fashion, The Sun embellished this a little for impact.

Using a curved glass could get you drunk quicker, scientists say

This is, of course, not strictly true. The speed at which one drinks is no guide to how quickly one gets drunk, nor does it suggest that drinking faster means drinking more.

However, it is clear that the study concerned is part of a concerted effort by prohibitionists to ban alcohol advertising and marketing in the future (I wonder where they got that idea from, eh?).

You may have noticed in recent years that beers, especially, are now served in distinctive branded glasses. Most people seem to appreciate this both on an aesthetic level and also for the fact that it helps identify whose pint is whose when with friends. As usual, though, what pleases the public instantly makes public health miseries - who seemingly attach no human benefit to happiness or satisfaction - see red, as the study's introduction hints at.

In particular, there has been an increase in branded drinking glasses in the United Kingdom in recent years, many of which include shape as a differentiating feature. These glasses include chalice glasses, curved beer flutes, tankard and novel curved beer glasses, and have been used by numerous alcohol brands including Stella Artois, Heineken, Guinness, Pilsner, Amstel, Smirnoff, Carlsberg, Carling and Jameson's whiskey. While alcohol advertising is still permitted in the United Kingdom, packaging and, by extension, drinking glasses provide another, currently unregulated, marketing channel.

Before achieving their stated goal of banning all advertising of alcohol, it seems the prohibitionist wing already have their sights set on branding too.

Now, let's just remind you of what a certain Deborah Arnott said about the prospect of alcohol advertising being banned just a few short months ago.

"[...] The “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false. The same argument was used against the ban on tobacco advertising, but 9 years after the tobacco ban in the UK, alcohol advertising is still permitted with no sign of it being prohibited."

As utter failures go, Debs' idiocy in spouting that is right up there in Michael Fish territory and becoming more embarrassing for the silly mare every passing day.

You see, notes to the glass shape study make it quite clear that they are, most definitely, using plain packaging proposals as a precedent for their own designs on banning branded glasses.

There may be other potentially modifiable factors which may influence alcohol consumption and drinking rate. These might include marketing signals (i.e., branding), and vehicles for these signals such as the glasses from which beverages are consumed. Legislation to control or limit these signals may therefore influence drinking behaviour. A parallel can be drawn with the tobacco control literature, where plain packaging has been shown to increase visual attention towards health warnings compared with branded packaging in non-smokers and light smokers.

Not only that, but one of the authors of the study - funded to the tune of £3,671 [page 48] by Alcohol Research UK, a former government 'arms length body' still using legacy taxpayer monies - is Marcus Munafò, a member of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies.

All very incestuous and also an indication that - whatever denial of precedents and 'domino theories' these truth-challenged nags profess in public - they are furiously working behind the scenes to link every strand of prohibitionist thinking together into a network of inter-connecting tactical abuses of the public's enjoyment and freedom of choice.

The last word must surely go to the first commenter at the Sun article, who saw that the 'scientists' (which the authors of the study most likely are not) mentioned in the headline were busying themselves with stuff the public would rather they didn't, and asked the obvious question.

Found a cure for cancer yet lads?

Quite.

H/T Harridanic.