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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

New Dry outfit CAMY in the news: Good News, Bad News

From an Advertising Age story: the Center for Alcohol Marketing & Youth, perhaps better known as CAMY, released yet another "study" on the number of alcohol beverage ads "youths" see. It's some scary stuff, too: "kids" see more and more alcohol beverage ads, according to CAMY, and over that same period, by any measure you look at, underage drinking is down! Oh...wait. CAMY didn't see fit to mention that last part. Kinda funny, huh?

Anyway, that's neither the "good news" nor the "bad news" in the post title; actually, far as I'm concerned, it's not news at all, it's just more poorly constructed, sensationalist blather designed to keep people scared so the grant money continues to roll in. The good/bad news came at the end of the article:
Citing the statistics, CAMY has called for the industry to tighten its own cap for underage viewers to 15% from 30%, but the group won't be around to see out that call.
The center is dissolving itself in response to a federal law that created a government entity charged with tracking youth exposure to alcohol advertising. "We're hoping the government picks up the slack from here," said [CAMY Director] Mr. [David] Jernigan, who added that he will remain involved in issues surrounding youth exposure to alcohol and food marketing.

Well, yay! It's like that wonderful day in 1962 when we were told "You don't have Nixon to kick around any more." CAMY won't be spewing their wildly skewed and twisted views of booze marketing anymore -- good news -- but there's going to be a another federal booze agency that will inevitably be infiltrated and turned by New Drys to turn out taxpayer-funded anti-booze propaganda. Bad news.

Me, I'm going to celebrate the good news and take on the bad news when it comes. CAMY was, with Joe "Crazy for Health" Califano's CASA, one of the most strident New Dry organizations, unconcerned with scientific rigor so long as the anti-alcohol message flooded the media. Ah, it's good to see the back of them. See you, CAMY, don't the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out.

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