Alcohol advertisement should be banned due to insufficient information

I'm going to extract 3 key points and address them below:1) Advertising leads to an increase in awareness:2) Recipients of advertising are unaware of the risks.3) Advertising increases usage.1) Advertising leads to an increase in awareness:In advertising alcohol, we are not only increasing the publics awareness of this substance I'd question strongly whether there is anyone of reasonable intelligence and age who lacks awareness of the substance. In 41 years of life I don't think I've ever met anyone over the age 5 not suffering from severe mental retardation that is unaware of the existence of alcoholic beverages. In terms of this debate I've discovered it is hard to find evidence that awareness is essentially universal, in the same way its hard to find evidence that awareness of the existence of cars is essentially universal. I'm going to assert as a point of contention that while advertising may be intended to influence a person's view of the desirability of alcohol consumption or to encourage them to increase the quantity of their consumption, it has no effect on the their awareness that alcohol exists. In particular when we are using the word "alcohol" in this context we mean ethanol, ethyl alcohol. The most common way that ethanol is produced on earth is as a waste product of anaerobic burning of most sugars on earth. For example glucose ( C6H12O6) is what most non-energy producing (essentially non plant) cells on earth use as their primary energy source. Animals quite literally convert any other form of energy into glucose prior to burning it. Glucose can only be used 3 ways be organisms on earth: cellular respiration which is the reaction all animals use for an energy source,. .. burning glucose plus oxygen to produce energy: C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O The second most common reaction is fermentation. And prior to the existence of animals, that is being that use oxygen to burn sugar, the most common way glucose was burned on earth via. the fermentation reaction: C6H12O6 → 2C2H5OH + 2CO2 where C2H5OH is ethanol. Fermentation is the obvious reaction without oxygen, and while there is 3rd reaction it is much rarer [see note 1]. There is no place on this planet, no cubic inch of soil that does not contain bacteria that evolved prior to the emergence of high levels of oxygen and that 2nd reaction is what those bacteria do with glucose. Any society trying to get food from plants, which is obviously every society, will inevitably and very quickly see bacteria eating sugars and producing ethanol. In short, everyone knows about bread, therefore everyone knows about yeast and glucose per the fermentation reaction is what yeasts eat. Now of course one could argue that just because all societies must inevitably know about ethanol doesn't mean all individuals do. And I suspect that's true. But lets keep track off all the activities such an individual would need to avoid: a) Church services, since wine is crucial to communion. b) Most forms of celebratory meals. c) Other cultural events which involve alcohol, like baseball. d) Baking in any form. e) Having fruit rot. I'm going to assert that no one manages to avoid all that in our society who is liable to be influence by advertising. So I'm going to ask pro in the cross-x for any evidence what-so-ever that knowledge of alcohol is not essentially universal. 2) Recipients of advertising are unaware of the risks. Alcohol producers advertise substances that seems appealing to the human senses without telling the viewers the risk associated with this substance. This second claim is related to the first. That advertisers fail to disclose risks. The pro case was never specific as to what these risks and what level of ignorance exists. I'm being put into the position of responding to a vague affirmative. DARE is active in US schools and one can see the list of risks (. http://www.dare.com...) in their curriculem. It would help to respond to a specific risk but: School, television, movies, books, culture are all educating young people about the risks of drinking. Again I'd like to see some data that children who are old enough to be likely to begin drinking are in fact ignorant of risks of drinking. I see no case being made for ignorance here. 3) Advertising increases usage. Allowing the advertisement of alcohol not only increase there craving for the substance but leads to an early drinking age thus leading to drunk driving and drunken accidents. Now this one is interesting. This is a very strong claim that advertising induces a craving even in children who had previously not been drinking and this leads to earlier drinking age leads to drunk driving and drunken accidents. Fascinating theory with 0 evidence presented to support it. First off the United States Senate addressed this issue of the effects of alcohol advertising on non-drinkers and found that they were not influenced at all (Congressional Record, May 20, 1985). The University of Texas did a follow up study and concluded the same thing, that the level of advertising had 0 impact on the percentage of drinkers in the population. That is advertising had no effect at all in causing people to take up drinking. (Wilcox, G. B. , Franke, G. R. , and Vacker, B. Alcohol Beverage Advertising and Consumption in the United States: 1964-1984. Austin, TX: University of Texas, Department of Advertising Working Paper, January, 1986, p. III; Sanders, James. Alcohol Advertisements Do Not Encourage Alcohol Abuse Among Teens. In: Wekesser, Carol (ed. ) Alcoholism. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1994. Pp. 132-135, p. 133. ) In terms of advertising effect on traffic fatalities that's also been found to be negatively correlated. It appears that higher levels of social acceptance and awareness, create social structures that allow intoxicated people to not have to drive ( Shoup, Harold, and Dobday, Christine. Alcohol Advertising Restrictions without Due Cause. In: Engs, Ruth C. (ed. ) Controversies in the Addictions Field. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1990. Pp. 130-135, p. 131) There are additional dozen or so citations available at . http://www2.potsdam.edu... _________This is my only round for cross examination.1) Do you have any study showing that advertising in western civilization, or any civilization for that matter, increases awareness of the existence of alcohol in societies? That is con is asserting that awareness is essentially universal do you have any evidence this is not true?2) What specific risk that children are likely to encounter from drinking do you think they have not been informed of by the time they are ready to start drinking. Do you have data to support this?3) What evidence do you have for the causal chain: advertising induces a craving even in children who had previously not been drinking and this leads to earlier drinking age leads to drunk driving and drunken accidents, exists? How do you explain country by country variations with respect to advertising dollars and drunk driving? How do you explain the data showing that alcohol advertising has no impact on non drinkers? _________Notes:[1] There is one more known glucose reaction, glycolsis which evolved much later and is rarer. The phrasing for this most readers would be familiar with is "anaerobic exercise". Since this debate is about advertising and not chemistry, I'm avoiding details as to why this third reaction is so much less common than the other two though a diagram of the complexity of the reaction: . http://upload.wikimedia.org... I think makes it evident from a common sense perspective. I agree the sequence: aerobic burning (i. e. using oxygen), fermentation and glycolsis in terms of relative frequency has not been proven and agree to do so in round 3 upon request.