Beer Marketer's Insights
How does CAMY "reconcile" the teen drinking dropoff rates with its claims that youth see proportionally more ads than adults? Its directors "welcomed" the good news in the "1-year" trends, at their December 17 press conference, but insisted teen drinking is still "unacceptably high" and that CAMY
Breaking Beer News
Another interesting point from Rick Berman
Universities are likely to get even more serious about tightening up their campus alcohol policies as a result of this settlement. They might expect an increase in lawsuits as well. The September, 1997 death of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology freshman after a night of excessive drinking at a fraternity house led to an unprecedented $6 million dollar settlement earlier this month. MIT paid the family of Scott Krueger $4.75 million for compensatory damages and $1.25 million for a scholarship fund in Krueger
The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services "shall develop, implement and conduct a national media campaign
A study of over 10,000 members of the Kaiser Permanente HMO found that those who consumed 3 or more drinks per day had the lowest average number of outpatient visits per year and were the least likely to be hospitalized. The authors acknowledged that their findings "may be consistent with the hypothesis that light or moderate drinking is protective against coronary heart disease and may be beneficial to health," but they did not pursue the important financial or health implications of how moderate drinking might reduce medical costs. Instead, they focused their analysis on ways to "deal with the medical problems of current and former heavy drinkers," and voiced support for "strategies designed to affect the environment." Ironically, according to their own data, such measures could ultimately drive current drinkers to drink less and use health services more.
In the study, those who consumed 3+ drinks per day averaged 5.1 outpatient visits per year, almost 25% lower than the 6.7 visits per year that abstainers (without a past history of drinking) averaged. Lighter drinkers, less than 3 drinks per day, averaged 6.1 outpatient visits per year, also lower than the abstainers. (Not surprisingly, nondrinkers who did have a past history of heavy drinking had the highest number of outpatient visits per year, 8.5.) Looking more closely at the data, the authors found "outpatient visits were lower among heavy drinkers for each age and ethnic group, the married and unmarried, the more and less educated and for those reporting different health statuses." In fact, the group with the lowest average number of outpatient visits: 18-29 yr-olds who consumed 3 or more drinks per day. They averaged just 2.6 visits per year, compared to 4.8 for those in the same age group who did not drink at all. Hospitalization rates among those in this sample of Kaiser Permanente HMO showed a "similar pattern," the authors found. "Current drinkers reported lower use of hospital services
Why AB Doesn
Not only will unity among brewers, vintners and distillers be difficult to achieve on key alcohol policy issues, there
August Busch III Raises Minimum Age Issue; So Do Others; Is It "Time to Fix Another Mistake?"
There has not been much serious discussion about lowering the minimum purchase age since the sharp negative response to Coors Chairman Peter Coors
Much of the focus at this year’s convention of the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) was on alcohol policy issues. Indeed, several speakers talked about nothing else. NBWA announced a new education foundation that aims to "educate the public about the economic, social and health benefits of beer," according to outgoing chairman Howard Hallam. Among other projects, NBWA intends to fund independent medical research into benefits of moderation, spread the word about progress against drunk driving and underage drinking, and "confront and refute misleading and inaccurate studies" from CSPI and other groups. AB chairman August Busch III talked about excise taxes, 3d-party review of industry advertising, minimum purchase age and other alcohol policy matters. ABI president Rick Berman talked about changing the way the public thinks about alcohol. Dr. Morris Chafetz discussed educating young people about how to drink. Dr. Margo Denke detailed beer’s nutritional content. Finally, a panel on dealing with the media also focused on alcohol issues. Details on some of these presentations follow.