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For Immediate Release
May 13, 2003
Contact:
info@camy.org

Statement Regarding JAMA Article: "Alcohol Advertising in Magazines and Adolescent Readership"

By David Jernigan, Ph.D., research director, Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University

Washington, DC - The study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) adds to the mounting evidence that alcohol advertisers are placing their ads where underage youth will see them. In fact, this study finds that beer and distilled spirits ads appear more frequently in magazines with higher adolescent readership. This overexposure of underage youth to alcohol advertising is deeply troubling to the millions of parents and teachers who are working to educate young people and safeguard them from the potential dangers of underage alcohol abuse.

The study offers additional evidence that self-regulation by the alcohol industry is not protecting kids. Sadly, alcohol advertisers seem content to follow the same dangerous path as tobacco companies did in the 1990s.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate if and how the recommendations issued by the FTC in 1999 have been implemented by the alcohol industry. The need for stronger advertising standards to protect America's youth from overexposure to alcohol advertising is now clearer than ever.

Copyright 2010, The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth

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