Liquor Ads Offensive

I am outraged over your April 5 marketing column, “Liquor Industry Plan for ‘Spirits Cooler’ Ads on TV Gets Icy Reception.” Alcohol addiction is the No. 1 drug problem in the United States. It is likely that more people die every day from the effects of alcohol than die every year from the effects of all the illegal drugs combined.

I don’t think that alcohol should be made illegal, but I do think that the mass media should reconsider allowing the companies that sell this deadly drug to advertise it on television. Every day I see ads that promote beer and wine drinking as the thing to after work.

These ads fuel the national obsession with mind-altering drugs and encourage people to get high. It is not much of a step from a beer after work to a beer and some cocaine. Now they want to advertise hard liquor. What is next? Do you want to see ads for heroin and crack? Just because those drugs are illegal now doesn’t mean that 20 years from now we won’t see a cute dog shooting up a brand of heroin on our televisions.

RANDALL STONER

North Hollywood