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Madison County Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, Inc. |
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If It's Illegal, Why Do We Allow It To Happen? If you’re under 21 you shouldn't be drinking alcohol. If it’s illegal to drink while you’re under 21, why do students do it? A big factor in the issue of underage drinking is advertising. Even if it’s not illegal to sell clothing, manufacturers sell alcohol-related articles of clothing in teenage-based stores. People should be on the lookout for both direct and indirect ways of advertising for alcohol. Even if the clothes aren't advertising a specific brand of alcohol, the sayings on the clothes promote the idea that drinking is an acceptable way to have fun. For example, a T-shirt may have sentences with twisted meanings like, "always wear your helmet" placed next to a picture of a man with a beer helmet on. Another slogan students might see is something like, "tuition well spent" placed next to a keg. As humorous as the slogans are, the messages are no joke. These articles of clothing may not advertise a specific brand of alcohol, but they still advertise drinking as acceptable. Is that what we want our teenagers to think? Life is just one big party after the other? I don't think so. We all need to work together and get these articles of clothing off the shelves and stop promoting alcohol as the focus of teen activities.
A Bigger Problem to worry about!! The big crisis... high gas prices! But is that the biggest problem in the world today? People are focused on dropping the cost of gas when in reality they should be focusing on the matter of underage drinking. Underage drinking is the number one illegal drug problem among our nation's young people. Advertisements within magazines and TV commercials are targeted towards minors. The way that companies do this is they use things that teens like. Bright colors, a fantasy- land where everything is perfect, parties being cool, fitting in at school, and sex appeal, are all things that are attractive to teens. So alcohol companies use these things to their advantage and use them in their advertising. Teens are then attracted to them and pay attention to them. Then they do anything to purchase these products. Teens may feel that by using they look cool and can fit in because they are acting like "mature adults." 42% of alcohol ads placed in 2004 magazines were towards the youth audience. Again in 2004, the youth population saw 15% more beer advertisements then adults, age 21 and older did. Together we can change these statistics. We need to get these ads off TV and out of Magazines. High gas prices don’t kill teens, but underage drinking does.
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