Soon you will see full-page advertisements from alcohol retailers with a difference. They are planning to devote 10 per cent of the ad space to promoting websites that discourage binge drinking, like rethinkyourdrink .com.au, or a state-of-the-art youth-oriented site, both initiatives of the Australian Centre for Addiction Research.
On the youth site a drinking questionnaire ends by asking if respondents have decided to reduce their consumption. The sponsoring alcohol industry has got a good idea of what the answer will be. No industry would support any initiative that was effective in reducing use of its products. Shareholders would have hard questions if companies supported any move to reduce demand, at least one that worked.
Sections of the liquor industry voluntarily offered the advertising space, a move that excited some heath workers. One sent an email describing it as "a huge coup as we [the health sector] will not be able to match the alcohol industry in terms of 'purchasing ads' - this proposal allows us to promote our 'self-change' programs while getting the alcohol merchants to pay for it".
Sound familiar? It should. The alcohol lobby is following the big tobacco path. As with smoking, education about problem drinking is crucial to reducing overuse. But unlike the hugely successful "Every cigarette is doing you damage" campaign - since whose inception in 1997 smoking rates have fallen faster than ever by showing, in your face, the results of smoking - the youth site reassures users that "it's not one of those 'don't drink or you'll go blind sites'."
Blindness is about as likely as the sites making a difference. If by chance they do begin to cause a measurable downturn in sales, my guess is that they would be smartly pulled.
The two websites define problem drinking as being the responsibility of the individual. "The fact is that the only person who can make a significant difference … is you", they insist. "It's your choice." Nothing is said about policy measures known to reduce alcohol consumption - like restrictions on advertising, licensing and retailing, or tax increases - all implacably opposed by the same industry that now, hand-on-heart, sides with health professionals to tackle the problem it helps to create.
The strategy is a boilerplate copy of that long pursued by the tobacco industry. The key ingredients are to join the white hat ranks in lamenting alcohol abuse and binge drinking, to define yourself as part of the solution (and thereby not part of the problem) and get a seat at the policy table, where you can influence which "solutions" are chosen.
Funding not dreamed of by co-operative health workers is thrown at their feet. They become mesmerised by the prospect of running large education programs. But while the action follows the money, real solutions - like professional lobbying for policy changes - are starved of funds. Inside the tent, few are willing to bite the hand that now feeds their work. Humphrey Bear's kid-friendly white cousin, Bundy Bear, is safe. Twenty20 cricket matches between teams sponsored by Johnnie Walker and KFC will remain an entirely normal part of the summer landscape.
The National Drug Research Institute has calculated that 39 per cent of alcohol is consumed in Australia at levels posing long-term health risks. Of all alcohol consumed by 14- to 17-year-olds, 80 per cent is drunk at levels deemed risky or highly risky for acute harm, while the underage market turns over $218 million a year.
The industry knows how profitable alcohol abuse and kids' drinking is.
The tobacco industry has referred to the ineffective youth anti-smoking programs it promotes as "air cover" for its ability to get on with banking the fruits of its marketing efforts to the same group. A classic internal industry memo, now public, said of these initiatives: "This is one of the proposals that we shall initiate to show that we as an industry are doing something about discouraging young people to smoke. This of course is a phoney way of showing sincerity as we all well know."
The liquor retailers have doubtless already calculated the advertising value of the donated space. So stand by, too, for these calculations to pepper their public relations efforts, positioning them as in the frontline of philanthropic efforts to reduce alcohol abuse, just as big tobacco did. According to a 2002 report by ABC News in the United States, Philip Morris spent $US150 million ($220 million) in one year on television advertisements promoting its corporate philanthropy, $US35 million more than the amount it gave to charities in the same year.
Those working to prevent alcohol harm need to send strong signals to those selling alcohol that they will not stop advocating for the sorts of controls that the industry opposes, just because they now benefit from participation in a rather anodyne education campaign.
They could start by insisting that the free advertising space being provided will also carry confronting, conversation-starting material about the profits the industry earns from the very behaviour it says it wants to prevent.
Simon Chapman is Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney.
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