A distillery is halting production of discount four-litre vodka jugs after the Alberta minister responsible for the province's liquor industry called out the product for not being responsibly priced.
So are they going to be stopping buyers from buying more than 4L in multiple containers? Seems like that will generate more waste, this isn't an eco-friendly policy.
My issue is honestly the marketing. Calling it "the party jug" pretty much tells everyone exactly what it's for, and let's just say it's probably not for your doctor recommended 1-2 drink daily maximum. Now I'm not a teetotaller or anything, but this is obviously directed at quite a young audience, which I think is a bit problematic.
I don't think it's marketed to young people, I think it's marketed to severe alcoholics. There are a shocking number of people who will go through this jug in a day or two.
I agree with the minister's concerns that it's too cheap. I recently moved from BC and it seems that bottom shelf hard liquor in general in Alberta is too cheap.
I'm not saying just sin tax the shit, it's too cheap in proportion to other alcohol. The low-income problem drinker who switches from beer to jugs of vodka to save money is going to make their problem much much worse.
Go home. They like shit excuses for logic better on the other side the mountains. Nobody's switching from beer to vodka by the gallon, they're already there. 2x2 liters instead of a gallon jug, big fucking difference. Saskatchewan you can buy vodka by the 5 gallon blue water jug.
Calling it "the party jug" pretty much tells everyone exactly what it's for...
...sharing with a large group of people?
this is obviously directed at quite a young audience
To me it seems aimed at people that want to buy a lot of alcohol for not very much money, which tends to be young people, but they don't seem to have done anything in particular to target young people.
1 liter of vodka is more than enough to kill a healthy adult by alcohol poisoning. It's not the size of the container that prevents that. Are these 4 liter jugs less expensive than 1 liter bottles?
If you want to prevent alcohol deaths you should focus on addressing the causes of alcoholism (I'm not an expert but shooting from the hip: loneliness and hopelessness) and drunk driving (again, not an expert but: transit infrastructure).
I definitely removed some qualifiers to avoid overly hedging my point, so yes I concede that not every healthy adult would be killed by consuming 1L of vodka in a single sitting.
Although I would also point out that a person that thinks that drinking a liter of vodka is laughably safe, is probably not healthy.
The results also suggested that compared with general price increases, minimum- pricing policies might affect harmful drinkers proportionally more...
I guess I'd be pleased to see the provincial Alberta government embrace epidemiologically based policy making. Especially if they do it consistently and not just when it aligns with their ideology.
For alcohol, because of it's prevalence in society, yet known destructiveness, it is a very prickly topic. Historically we already know that prohibition is the worst solution to the problem and has far worse outcomes.
I personally think there should be some hard ethical bounds on marketing when it comes to potentially life wrecking substances. We do this for cigarettes, right?
Now I think humankind's relationship with alcohol is a bit more nuanced, but when alcohol packaging starts to look like sugary cereal boxes, that's where I draw the line. Admittedly this isn't quite there, but it's borderline IMO. I don't think we should be encouraging binge drinking by selling party sized mix packs like this.
Mind you, it's not the size or price that bothers me. My grandma always bought gallon bottles of booze from the US on the cheap, but they'd last her a few years. That's fine. Sell it without fun-dinosaur, and put on a boring-ass, noname vodka label, and it's fine by me.
Just an addendum, I feel similarly about marketing of sugary cereal to children.
Edit: Lol, why'd you ask if you were just going to downvote and not engage with the response?
I don't vote on here, I never do. I didn't do anything to your post. You have your view. I think it's a bit arbitrary. Take it a step further and ban porn. It sounds like arbitrarily picking and choosing what you think is bad for society and needing to control society for them. Like the "video games cause violence" liars.
"Responsibly" here mean "more expensively", if you read the article. I'm not sure if this guy's specific issues is public health or protecting the competition. "I don't think a four-litre plastic jug of vodka adds to the quality of the distillery industry that we have in this province” kind of implies the latter.