South Africa Says No to Alcohol Ads

By: EW News Desk Team   Date: 7 September 2011

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07 September 2011

The South African government is planning to enact a ban on all forms of alcohol advertising in an attempt to curb violent crime caused by excessive drinking, said Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters and health officials at a World Health Organisation (WHO) violence prevention meeting in Cape Town yesterday, Motsoaledi highlighted how the country had one of the highest crime rates in the world, which regularly attracts the attention of foreign analysts “just to learn to deal with wounds of injury and violence because we are regarded as a laboratory for that.”

Motsoaledi added, "The driving factor behind this is alcohol, the harmful effects of alcohol. We're not going to pull back about the issue of alcohol control, including the banning on advertising of alcohol."

The Health Minister lamented that too many youngsters in South Africa were dying as a result of alcohol abuse, and as such something had to be done to restrain alcohol’s influence.

"If saving our people earns us a title of being a nanny (state), I very much welcome that title," said Motsoaledi, as cited by AFP. 

About 3.5 million South Africans are treated annually for injuries obtained through alcohol abuse, quoted Motsoaledi. This number, said Motsoaledi, was now contributing to an already overburdened public health system.

South Africa ranks 52nd among the world's heaviest drinkers, according to the WHO, and is one of the world's most violent societies with 46 murders per day and high levels of rape.

WHO’s director of violence prevention Etienne Krug added that violence was now “one of the biggest health problems in the world”, claiming nearly 1.5 million victims worldwide annually.

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, supported Motsaledi’s claims and asserted that a clampdown on alcohol promotion was essential.

“The root cause of most of the violence and trauma in our province is substance abuse and unless we deal with these issues we would not be able to bring down violence, the burden of disease and crime,” she said.

However, Motsoaledi’s Western Cape counterpart, MEC Theuns Botha, pointed out that the war was actually against the abuse of alcohol rather than alcohol itself.

Botha estimated that it would take several years before alcohol advertising disappear completely from billboards, TV and movie screens.


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