We must not delay making alcohol-free childhoods a reality

For Alcohol Focus Scotland and its campaign partners, who are working together to end the harmful impacts of alcohol marketing, there is no reason to delay giving children the experience of an alcohol-free childhood.

Here, Amy Smith, Senior Coordinator (Policy) at Alcohol Focus Scotland, highlights why alarming statistics, children and young people’s views and the recent UNCRC incorporation all tell us that we need to act now.

Alcohol brands are highly visible in our everyday lives and billions of pounds are spent every year on marketing these products. Young people are particularly susceptible to alcohol marketing, and research shows that it is a cause of youth drinking, leading children and young people to start drinking earlier, to drink more, and to drink at problematic levels.

Alcohol Focus Scotland has joined forces with BMA Scotland, Children in Scotland, Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs (SFAD), and Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) in a mission to end the harmful impacts of alcohol marketing on children and young people in Scotland, through our Alcohol-Free Childhood campaign (click here for more) .

The campaign pledges that “alcohol marketing has no place in childhood. All children should play, learn and socialise in places that are healthy and safe, protected from exposure to alcohol marketing.” We’re delighted to have around 50 organisations from across civic society already signed up, as well as support from 80 MSPs across all parties, including First Minister John Swinney MSP.

So far, the campaign has been instrumental in obtaining a commitment from the Scottish Government to consult on potential restrictions to protect children and young people. Following an initial consultation in 2023, a second consultation on a narrower set of proposals was expected this year.

However, events in recent weeks have seen a major setback in the delivery of these commitments. Despite campaign partners writing to the First Minister (click here for more)  calling for the Programme for Government to include their commitment to consult, it failed to do so. Earlier this month, in a ministerial statement on statistics showing record high levels of alcohol-specific deaths, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care announced a delay to the next alcohol marketing consultation until a further evidence review has been conducted by Public Health Scotland.

This delay is unnecessary - we have more than enough evidence to act now. You need look no further than the report by the Alcohol Marketing Expert Network, ‘Realising our Rights: How to protect people from alcohol marketing' (click here for more), published by Alcohol Focus Scotland in 2022. As well as setting out how children are affected by alcohol marketing, it notes the failure of industry self-regulation to protect them from exposure, concluding that the Scottish Government must learn from the experiences of other countries and introduce a comprehensive set of restrictions. This includes on outdoor and public space advertising; sports and event sponsorship; and the display of alcohol in shops.

Such restrictions have been identified by the World Health Organization as one of the most effective ways to reduce alcohol harm, noting that they not only protect children and young people, but also help to address the normalisation of alcohol consumption across the general population.

Most importantly, alcohol marketing restrictions would help Scotland meet its international human rights obligations, especially now that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has been incorporated into Scots law. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has warned specifically that the marketing of alcohol to children can have a long-term impact on their health, affecting their right to life, survival and development.

Working with children and young people and amplifying their voices, which often go unheard in discussions about the impact of alcohol, is paramount to our campaign. Youth engagement projects, such as that conducted by Children in Scotland (click here for more), have highlighted the need for restrictions, and how children and young people themselves want alcohol to be less visible in their daily lives. This adds to views from the Young Scot Health Panel (click here for more) of children and young people aged 14-25 years in 2020 and members of Scotland’s Children’s Parliament (click here for more), aged 9-11, in 2019.

At Alcohol Focus Scotland, we have worked with over 200 children and young people over the past few years, creating an animation (click here for more) to represent their views and incorporating these into our submission to the first alcohol marketing consultation. We will continue this work as we call for the Scottish Government to put children’s rights above industry profit and bring forward restrictions as soon as possible.

International public health experts, civic society organisations, policy makers and children and young people themselves are aligned in this call to action to protect younger generations from the harmful effects of alcohol marketing. It’s time that we saw this support translate into tangible action and change.

To make this happen, we need your help!

To sign up to the Alcohol-Free Childhood campaign please email: amy.smith@alcohol-focus-scotland.org.uk.

Click here to visit the campaign page for more information