Blog
Budweiser’s Out-of-Bounds Cynicism
- Details
- Created: Monday, March 22 2021 09:00
For many, the Super Bowl is the pinnacle—of athletic competition, of advertising, of alcohol consumption. This year, main sponsor Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) climbed a new peak by exploiting the global pandemic for alcohol sales and lying to the public, in a true hail mary of #COVIDwashing.
The multinational beer giant ran an advertisement prior to the Super Bowl touting Budweiser’s intention to donate all of its ad space to vaccine awareness. And this was true, technically. All of the ad time that might have been used to sell Budweiser instead ran public service announcements trying to encourage viewers to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it became available.
What ABI failed to mention, however, was that the donation applied only to the Budweiser brand. The brewer giant ran ads for four other brands it owns: Bud Light, Bud Light Hard Seltzer, Michelob Ultra, and Michelob Light Organic Seltzer. Make no mistake, Budweiser is not the most popular beer in America. That title belongs to Bud Light, and ABI had no intention of losing a dollar of that dominance. Meanwhile, the Budweiser ad spot donation was covered in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC… which is the kind of exposure money just can‘t buy.
We have seen this pattern of behavior from Big Alcohol many times in the past. Breast Cancer Action coined the term “pinkwashing” to refer companies whose products are linked to breast cancer participating in breast cancer-related charities. Alcohol Justice has been using a similar term, COVIDwashing, in homage, when Big Alcohol uses lockdowns and COVID-19 awareness campaigns to market its products and make the companies look benevolent. But much like alcohol has a clear link to breast cancer risk, it may be linked to COVID mortality as well.
Physiologically, alcohol both impairs the immune system and causes inflammation. A weakened immune system makes individuals more likely to contract COVID-19 if exposed, while the fatal reactions to the virus mostly derive from excessive lung inflammation and congestion. Socially, alcohol inspires more reckless behavior, while bars and nightclubs, as enclosed spaces where people tend to congregate very close together, threaten to become loci for spread.
This is not to say there was no way ABI could ethically support COVID-19 awareness and prevention. The company could have donated the money it spent on advertising—including the money it spent on advertising its intention to donate—to groups fighting to save lives. At the very least, it could have not lied to the public’s face, and donated all of its ad time. But given the opportunity to do the right thing, ABI instead banked on the power of #COVIDwashing, letting the public’s gratitude overshadow the corporate cynicism. It is just the latest in a long line of ethical collapse by ABI, and yet another reason to Free Our Sports and get Bud out of the Super Bowl.
WATCH the Youth For Justice and Alcohol Justice crews take down Budweiser’s two-faced charity.
LISTEN to Prevention Action Alliance’s J.P. Dorval explain how kids can learn to read between the lines of Super Bowl ads.
The Worst Companies In America Make a Move on Marijuana
- Details
- Created: Monday, March 22 2021 08:10
Some industries have made a name for themselves by being the best at being the worst. They sell products with a known body count, they have undermined science with fake experts, and they have bullied and manipulated legislatures into low-oversight, low-tax schemes that crippled public health response for a century or longer. And now they want in on the newest legal drug market—marijuana.
In mid-March 2021, the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation was launched, funded and overseen by a coalition of companies that include representatives from Big Alcohol (Constellation Brands and Molson Coors) and Big Tobacco (Altria, formerly Philip Morris). The Coalition explicitly states its intention to “guide cannabis legalization and regulation at the federal level.”
This is not a philanthropic effort. In-house industry documents show that the tobacco industry has been planning for the legalization of marijuana for the past fifty years, hoping to use it to boost flagging tobacco sales. Meanwhile, Constellation has already moved aggressively into the marijuana industry, obtaining a significant stake in medical marijuana brand Canopy. Molson Coors has also already forged a partnership with marijuana companies to develop a line of CBD products.
The Coalition touts its expertise in “regulatory and enforcement structures, state and legacy systems, financing and minority capital access, tax policy, criminal justice reform, [and] social equity … .” These are not empty claims. For over a century, Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco have created lasting harm in each of these domains. They have undermined regulatory schema. They have consolidated small companies to create transnational behemoths. Through endless lobbying and bottomless campaign coffers, they have crippled community abilities to offset harms by raising alcohol or tobacco taxes. By shifted liability for alcohol harms away from the companies and sales environments and on to individual consumers, they have made it cripplingly difficult to hold businesses accountable. Both alcohol and tobacco companies have invested billions in targeting ethnic, racial, and sexual minority groups.
In short, in every single one of these domains of expertise, Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco have mastered the art of increasing harm.
Responsible marijuana legislation simply cannot coexist with Big Alcohol or Big Tobacco’s interests. In terms of preventable causes of death worldwide, tobacco and alcohol use have rank first and third, even during the height of the opioid crisis. Even above the simple profit motive, evidence shows that mixing these industries with marijuana increases harms from the latter. Recent studies suggest that using alcohol with marijuana substantially increases the level of intoxication versus using either alone. Similarly, tobacco and marijuana co-users have a tougher time quitting either. This Coalition must either ban alcohol and tobacco interests, or make it clear where their interests lie: in making money and burying bodies.
READ MORE about the need to keep Big Alcohol out of the marijuana industry.
READ MORE about the lobbying power of Big Alcohol.
GUEST VOICES: 2020 Fails to Supply the Demand for Opioid Treatment
- Details
- Created: Monday, March 08 2021 10:40
By Ramón Castellblanch, PhD
The COVID-19 pandemic aggravated the opioid epidemic, both in terms of supply and demand. In terms of the supply, we took a terrible hit in the number of programs to fight it. As of September, their revenues were down by over 20%. With those losses, more than half of these programs were not sure that they’d still be operating this spring.
At the same time, demand for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment skyrocketed under the COVID-19 pandemic. For the last three quarters reported, California’s opioid dashboard shows that opioid overdose deaths rose from 882 in the final quarter of 2019 to 1,255 in the second quarter of 2020, an increase of over 40%.
On the bright side, the state of California took some serious steps toward addressing the crisis. Its most notable achievement was in the area of funding SUD treatment. The enactment of SB 855 means that private insurers must cover it. At this beginning of this year, the state Department of Managed Health Care has directed the insurers to submit forms documenting their compliance by February 1.
More Articles ...
Subcategories
Help us hold Big Alcohol accountable for the harm its products cause.
| GET ACTION ALERTS AND eNEWS |
STAY CONNECTED    |
CONTACT US 24 Belvedere St. San Rafael, CA 94901 415-456-5692 |
SUPPORT US Terms of Service & Privacy Policy |