We Americans seem to wrongly equate legality with morality. In other words, if something is illegal it is undeniably wrong, and vice versa. This is a testament to the trust that we place in our legal system, but we our doing ourselves a disservice when we stop questioning the law. For instance, alcohol is legal when a person becomes twenty-one. Prior to turning that age, alcohol is condemned and lambasted from all angles, as if it were growing from the Tree of Knowledge. Weirdly, when a person become twenty-one it is by all means time to party. No one seems to condemn it unless you get drunk and subsequently get behind the wheel of a car, which is illegal at a certain drunken level. It not only becomes okay, it seems like it is encouraged. They have drive-thru liquor stores in Maryland. And hey, if you forget what kind of beer attracts the hottest girls, they play constant beer ads on T.V.
First, in 1967, the FCC applied the Fairness Doctrine with regard to cigarette advertisements. The FCC posited that the sheer number of cigarette advertisements were providing the public with misperceptions about cigarettes. Thus, the FCC required all T.V. networks to air anti-smoking advertisements to counter the cigarette ads that somehow managed to romanticize and glorify the act of smoking with a man on a horse, which, in my opinion, is impressive as hell. But somehow, alcohol seemed to be immune from such governmental condemnation and regulation. To this day, the number of beer ads more than make up for the complete eradication of smoking advertisements, which was the result of the Public Health Cigarette Act of 1970. Congress, at that time, understood the influence that advertising became with the vehicle of television. They saw how cigarette companies were manipulating the public by making smoking cool without informing them of the dangers. 'But they did not know the dangers back then.' Really? The cigarette companies plead oblivion because there was no solid medical evidence that held that engulfing lungs with smoke was bad for you. In any case, the government took action and now, in 2011, no man on a horse is smoking a cigarette between shows and the government taxes the shit out of it.
But let's get back to the fact that alcohol was interestingly immune from government attacks during this contentious time period about the increasing power of advertising. How were they able to manage to evade the government? 'Most people understand the dangers of alcohol and when done responsibly alcohol does not compromise or threaten a persons life.' Really? Is there not a term called an "alcoholic," which describes a person who is irrevocably addicted to alcohol unless he or she becomes a teetotaler. Furthermore, alcohol advertisements do not seem to convey the sentiment that properly explains the dangers of alcohol. Alcohol advertisements conveniently leave out the fact that alcohol induced deaths were around 23,000 in the year 2007 in America alone, according to drugwarfacts.org. No shit, right? Selling a product that causes thousands of deaths can't be good for sales. I'm not advocating for the government to abolish alcohol from America, but they must institute a counter to these advertisements that properly informs people of the dangers that alcohol can cause, legal or illegal.
I am cognizant of the fact that society does condemn alcohol to a degree, but the increasing influence that advertisements have on the public because of the television, the internet, and many other venues needs to have some form of oversight by the government. Society has failed to depict alcohol for what it really is. Therefore, I think the government needs get involved.
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