Alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, following tobacco and obesity. While 90 percent of Americans know tobacco causes cancer, fewer than half realize alcohol does as well. Like tobacco warnings, alcohol warning labels would help consumers make more informed health choices.
While I’m in favor of adding a label, I don’t think it would change much of anything. If you’re really health conscious, you probably don’t drink already and most other people would presumably say stuff like “everything causes cancer these days” or “my grandfather drinks daily and look how healthy he is”.
If I remember correctly, even putting NSFW warning images on cigarettes didn’t do much.
I’d much rather force manufacturers to use plain packaging (white label + black text in a standard font). Make it look as boring as possible with large warnings. Colors and branding have a very significant effect on sales - why else would labels have designs?
It will certainly also make it seem less normalized for children. Right now alcohol packaging is hardly distinct from some soft drinks.
Labels work, but they’re not a cure-all.
Ask why police don’t track the number of arrestees who are intoxicated. On the rare occasions (1998) it was tracked it was like 40%. And that’s just alcohol.
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Fun fact: while all the other packages have gory images on them, the “smoking causes impotence” ones show a floppy cigarette
I never questioned the effectiveness in terms of teaching the consumer. As I’ve said, I’m in favor of that and it’s great.
However, people tend to continue their consumtion despite better knowledge. At least I remember this being the case with cigarettes. So it does almost nothing for the general health of your population. As others already mentioned, plain labels, a ban on marketing and similar actions are probably far more effective.
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Have fun: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12954-021-00487-3
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