Lobbying. Big Liquor is in everyone’s pocket.
this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
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I've always found it weird that alcohol doesn't have warning labels. At least not where I live. I guess the risks are common knowledge but we can say the same for cigarettes
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To be fair, as an alcoholic, alcohol ads had zero effect on my purchases.
Before I quit, the only thing that influenced my buying was the calculator app on my phone. For beer it was Millilitres per can times cans per block divided by ABV, divided by price. Higher number good.. For scotch and port it was easier.
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Big Booze
I do think that on a phone or computer one ought to be able to opt out, like how shops who spam me in email say "do you want to opt out of mother's day emails?" Because they don't want to send them if your mom or kid just died, right?
But I don't know how you would do that without sort of registering as an alcoholic, which seems problematic.
I'm literally subscribed to an industry newsletter and research cocktails for the community here, and haven't seen very many ads for any sort of alcohol though? Are you really seeing them all the time?
If you wanted to make it possible to opt out of certain categories of ads (like alcohol) on personal devices/computers, without having to tell the advertiser that you're an alcoholic or similar, perhaps a law could mandate that ads made for those products or brands associated with them be tagged as such in some way, and that software that displays ads should have a setting to not display ones that arrive with that tag? That way the setting only needs to be client side. I mean ideally you'd just not have ads at all but that's a much bigger and more difficult fight than just alcohol obviously.
It’s honestly hard to say. Obviously it’s not ever single commercial I see. I feel like an abnormal amount. I see more drinking adds than gambling ads.
But I can’t be positive because I notice every drinking ad because I’m struggling. I probably wouldn’t notice a Nerf commercial in the mix.
Cigarette companies themselves actually lobbied for cigarette commercials to be banned. For more information, look up "Knowing Better cigarettes" on YouTube since I'll have to write an essay to explain why and he puts it way better than I can
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People make money on it. People don't care enough to organize around stopping it.
How is that legal?
Those considerations are always a trade-off. How much government should interfere with an industry, especially one that's been around since we monkeys climbed down from the trees? There isn't just the plight of alcoholics to consider. An advertisement ban would affect business and jobs. It would take a considerable chunk out of the advertising market that when gone world affect media, an already struggling industry. And AA doesn't quite have the deep pockets for lobbying. It's legal because it's complicated, not because it's just.
I happen to agree with you here; ads for alcohol should be banned along with those for any sort of gambling and prescription medication while I'm at it. This "drink responsibly" campaign is an effort to make it harder for lawmakers to decide. I'm reminded of that Soviet Union quote and i'm paraphrasing: we know that they know that we know that they know they're lying yet the lying continues.
One day at a time.
Gambling also has that little “see we care” bit at the end
“Ifyouorafamikyhasaproblemgamblinghelpis available “
“See we are offering help.”
You seem like you got a good head on your shoulders.
Couldn’t an angle be worked that specifically targeted adds to those in recovery are as egregious as saying it’s healthy? Like all my targeted adds are booze and bar accessories.
Same I’m sure with gambling addicts.
That we could target. I think everyone can agree that’s pretty messed up.
As I said, I agree with you. As another commenter said, big tobacco lied and got caught and punished. Big booze hasn't risen to quite that level. Additionally and unfortunately, alcoholics and gambling addicts are probably a relatively small part of the population and less likely to vote. And politics is a numbers game. We live in a relatively fucked up world. Where convicted sexual assaulters can still be president. Where the only person convicted from a pedophile gang is a woman. And where you need to be stronger than most of us to not fall off the wagon. But you can translate this justified anger into political change. This must be an issue that has an action group in politics somewhere, which you could seek out and support.
Cigarettes cause more deaths: 8 million per year compared to 2.8 million per year. Not disagreeing with you, just pointing out why perhaps there are more lenient rules.
I don't even see ads for drinking online, that's how banned they are in my country.