So, there are these things called candy cigarettes. They are candy shaped like cigarettes. Despite simply being things like bubble gum or chocolate, it turns out that people who ate them as kids are about twice as likely to smoke real cigarettes as adults. This has resulted in them being banned as advertising tobacco products to children in a good number of countries. This add for nonalcoholic beer specifically saying that minors can buy it can easily be argued to be the same kind of thing, with the same kind of legal response. If consuming non-alcoholic beer as a minor results in significantly higher rates of alcohol consumption as an adult, then ads for non-alcoholic beer that target children, like the one shown, might be worth a ban.
Comment on Saw this at the store this morning, took a double take
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 weeks agoGerman here. I’m absolutely flabbergasted that this incomprehensible opinion has 20 upvotes.
0% alcohol is 0% alcohol. What the fuck are you talking about?
VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de 3 weeks ago
Guess we have give it a different name than… My proposal: Freer
baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
I’m also German but nobody should advertise harmful drugs to children.
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Yeah, and 0,0% beer in Germany can have up to 0,04999…% alcohol while unlabeled anything may have up to 1.2% (fruit juice often has like 0.3% or so)
Mentando@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I was under the impression that “alkoholfrei” / “alcohol free” could be up to 0.5%, whereas 0.0% really needed to be without any alcohol. Your link is only about the first case, if I read it correctly. They do state though that “without alcohol” should really be without.
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
There’s no deception: <0.05 rounds to the two significant digits 0.0 (0.050001 would round to 0.1)
It’s impossible to have absolutely no alcohol in something that had sugar and living micro-organisms in it at any point: e.g. fruits and therefore juice have alcohol.
That why you don’t need to label anything with less than 1.2% alcohol. You can only be sure that something has less when it says 0.0% or „alkoholfrei“.
cosmos8188@leminal.space 3 weeks ago
Agreed, but also including teenagers.
Fawkes@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
So 19yr olds shouldn’t be advertised to? What’s the cut off?
I actually fully agree that all advertisement is awful and support removing it entirely.
But lacking that, I don’t see an issue with advertising universally. And if we’re going to restrict advertisement to children, target actual children. “Teenagers” includes people legally old enough to join the military and kill other humans.
cosmos8188@leminal.space 3 weeks ago
Honestly, you’re right, but the issue is deeper than that. Ads like this indoctrinate people that aren’t even children - this includes teenagers past 13 and even adults of varying stages.
Advertising harmful drugs shouldnt be done at all - but in the meantime, teenagers and even young adults should be except. Also the killing part is a totally different issue.
Vrtrx@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What does you being German have anything to do with it? Completely ignoring that no, being able to legally advertise it as 0% doesn’t mean it has 0%, in Germany non-alcoholic beer is still beer and doesn’t get advertised to children. That would be fucking insane to do.
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
You’re confusing „ohne Alkohol“/0.0% beer with „alkoholfrei“/“non-alcoholic” beer.
In Germany, drinks only have to be labeled as alcoholic from 1.2% upwards, so
- unlabeled fruit juice may have up to 1.2%
- alkoholfrei may have up to 0.5%
- 0,0 may have 0,0% (rounded down from up to 0,04999…%)
Fawkes@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Except the US concept of underage also includes people 16 to 20, which this ad is undoubtedly target towards. If it was an ad for beer with bright colours and cartoon characters I would agree, but it is not.
creamfresh@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Absolute fringe opinion even in Germany. Most shops and bars refuse to serve 0.0 to teens below legal drinking age, ads also don’t target them.
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Hahaha what weird corner do you live in? Completely unbelievable in Bavaria.
Not saying that I like the drinking culture here, but you’re not describing the reality here.
creamfresh@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
yeah should have guessed it’s Bavaria
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
No, you should have guessed Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Hamburg, or Sachsen, which have higher per capita alcohol consumption than Bavaria.
Fawkes@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Below drinking age, sure. I think the nonsense here is that the US considers you “Under age” until you’re 21. So you’re complaining about an ad targeting children, when the target is literally “Anybody under the age of 21.” Which is an unfair complaint to make.
Because using that same logic, “under age” porn is actually legal. Because at 18 you can get fucked in the ass by 3 dudes at once, but not buy a beer.
I hear you say “But there are different ages for X and Y.” Yeah, but it’s the exact same term used to mean the same idea with completely different ranges and neither has any justification beyond “Uh… Here’s the cut-off I guess?”
Would you take issue with 18yr olds having beer ads aimed at them? Because that’s technically “Under Age Beer!” And they’d be considered full adults here in Germany.
creamfresh@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes I take issue with alcohol ads aimed at anybody.
Fawkes@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Sure, I’m not against that at all. I hate advertisements and would take no issue with a universal ban. My problem was with the arbitrary moral outrage at this advertisement targeting “Children,” by virtue of the utterly meaningless phrase “Under Age,” which includes actual, legitimate adults, in the US.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Here in Estonia you have to be 18 to buy alcohol free beer and wine. The idea being “hey maybe let’s not get kids used to the flavour of drinks that are bad for them to be consuming even once they ARE 18”
thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
There used to be candy that looked like cigarettes and soft drinks made to look like a champagne bottles, and at some point we decided that was not a good idea.
I drink and I smoke, but I also think it’s not a good idea to get children used to those things. You can drink responsibly but there’s no quantity of alcohol that does zero damage, and the less we get young people used to them the better.
LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Unfortunately, there isn’t a “one size fits all solution”. When I was a kid, I had the candy cigarettes, champagne bottles, cap-guns to play " cops and robbers", and bb-guns to “shoot things” (trash usually)
As an adult, I don’t smoke, I’ll have a beer once a month or less, and I haven’t robbed any banks nor go hunting. Mainly because, as an adult, I’m not interested in those things.
However, as a child, these were tools to pretend and often pretending involves replicating you’re environment. I definitely grew-up in a rural area, but on (80-90s) television when everyone is smoking and drinking, you’re relatives smoke and drink - it’s normalized.
I would argue that the social shift towards no smoking and less drinking for adults, has a greater affect on children and a ban on stick shaped candy in a box.
(Now marketing vaping to young people with addictive “fun” chemical flavoring: that is evil and should be banned)
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I drink non-alcoholic beer because I like the flavor of beer.
thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
It’s not really about the alcohol content per se.
The issue is getting young and impressionable children used to the idea of drinking beer.
Fawkes@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I’m pretty sure young and impressionable children get used to the idea of drinking beer from friends and family. I think the bigger issue is that the drinking age is fucking 21. It’s absolutely nonsense. If you want to protect children from alcohol abuse, talk to them, teach them, let them have alcohol when they’re ready to try it, in safe settings.