This latest report from CAMY is subjective, very biased, and most misleading. The title also misleads because the report doesn’t actually document violations of industry standards.

The report isn’t about youth-oriented magazines as most people would define them but about those that have as few as 15% readers age 12-20. Those can’t reasonably be defined as youth-oriented, but the authors have to set the bar so low because they would have nothing at all to report. They even include some magazines that, in their own words, they “suspect” may have 15% or more youthful readers!

It is the two authors, and they alone, who decide not only which magazines to select but also how they will identify which ads supposedly promote drinking alcohol with risky behaviors, promote addiction, are sexual in nature, etc. They decided that an ad describing a particular brand of alcoholic beverage as “irresistable” promotes addiction by so describing it. A couple enjoying lunch and a drink at a picnic bench promotes consuming alcohol with risky behaviors if a river can be seen in the background.

The authors conveniently ignore the fact that virtually no ads violated the industry standard against alcohol advertising in any magazines with 30% or more younger readers.

The authors’ urgent call for government imposition of additional laws and regulations are not justified. Federal statistics show that the proportion of those under 21 who drink, binge drink, or who die in alcohol-related accidents on the road have all dropped to historic lows.

It’s most unfortunate that in a time of severe budgetary crisis, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave the Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth $4,000,000 with which it produces such deceptive reports in an effort to influence legislation.

Members of Congress need to make sure that no more tax money is wasted on the Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth.