Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashaiman constituency in the Greater Accra Region, Hon. Ernest Henry Norgbey, has proposed that Parliament passes a law to regulate advertisement on alcoholic beverages in the media, especially on radio and television.
According to him, the numerous alcoholic advertisements on “our screens were having negative effects on the youth.”
The Ashaiman lawmaker continued: “Mr Speaker, it is said that good habits formed at youth make all the difference, hence every policy a nation seeks to implement should aim at protecting our youth from any kind of harm.”
He noted that the high publicity and prestige the society gives to alcohol have gradually downplayed the damaging effect of alcohol.
The MP revealed that Ghana has been listed among countries where alcohol consumption is high.
This, he explained, was not an achievement to be proud of bearing in mind the repercussions of alcohol use.
Hon. Norgbey opined that the various means through which the youth are initiated into alcohol should be minimised through legislation.
“As legislators, it is imperative that we do something about the most common and biggest medium, advertisement,” he added.
“Mr Speaker, various research works have revealed that advertisements associated with alcoholic beverages serve as a catalyst for alcohol consumption and subsequently the abuse of it. A study done by James D. Sargent, as reported by Psychology Today, stated emphatically that “familiarity with and response to images of television alcohol marketing was linked to the subsequent onset of drinking alcohol across a range of outcomes of varying severity among adolescents and young adults, adding to studies suggesting that alcohol advertisement is number one cause of youth drinking,” he maintained.
The MP reiterated his call to pass stiffer laws which will ban all distillery companies whose product advertisements flout the code of advertising practice published in the statute books from advertising their products.
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