Sociological Approach to Reducing Alcoholism

¶ … Sociological Approach to Reducing Alcoholism in Society

Alcoholism is a significant social problem in the United States. In addition to being a causal factor in many types of violent crime, interpersonal and intrafamily dysfunction, and medical disability (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008), it is also directly responsible for billions of dollars in property destruction and approximately 50,000 human fatalities annually, in the form of drunk driving (Schmalleger, 2009). To date, much of the policy-oriented dialogue about alcoholism in society has focused on the distinction between biological causes (i.e. heredity) in the disease conceptual understanding of addiction and behavioral (i.e. rational choice) conceptual understanding of addiction (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).

For the purpose of the foregoing suggestions, that distinction is practically irrelevant. That is because, whether and to whatever extent addiction in general and alcoholism in particular is attributable to biology, there is no disagreement that behavioral norms and prevailing elements of social culture as pertains to alcohol are, almost universally, factors as well (Fisher, 2006). Moreover, alcohol prohibition is not an effective approach to mitigating social problems caused by alcoholism (Schmalleger, 2008). Therefore, the next best avenue to controlling alcoholism might be to address the way that specific social norms and expectations in American society perpetuate alcoholism and provide fertile ground for the maximum possible influence of any genetic predisposition to alcoholism instead of minimizing alcoholism in society.

Restricting Commercial Advertising

Prior to changes in the federal regulation of tobacco and liquor advertising, cigarette advertisements aired on television throughout the day and promotion of smoking by that industry was ubiquitous throughout American society. Likewise, beer and hard liquor were routinely drunk in television ads and in other forms of media typically consumed by underage individuals. As public awareness of the problems of addiction and alcoholism in teenagers increased, that was reflected in legislative changes that restricted the manner in which tobacco and alcohol products could be marketed and advertised to the public and in what circumstances and venues. By 1980, cigarettes could no longer be advertised on television at all and the actual depiction of alcohol consumption was prohibited in advertising as well.

Given the tremendous negative consequences of alcoholism in society and the extent to which so many people are either predisposed or susceptible to alcoholism, it would make sense to restrict commercial advertisement even further. In principle, there is no reason that only underage individuals should be protected from the undue psychological influence of modern media advertising whose sole purpose is to promote the use of products known to be responsible for substantial cost to society and to the quality of life of so many people and families.

In fact, the same constitutional principle that allows the government to regulate advertising and the licensed selling of tobacco and alcohol would also allow greater restriction (Dershowitz, 2006). Namely, because the type of speech involved is commercial speech, (rather than artistic expression or political speech, for example), the so-called "right to free speech" is a qualified right that is constitutionally subject to more control than non-commercial speech. Unlike First Amendment protections of speech more generally, government regulation of commercial speech goes far beyond the time, place, and manner aspects of regulating speech. Specifically, whereas most types of speech cannot be regulated for content, that is not the case with commercial speech, provided only that the government can establish that doing so fulfills important public interests and in a manner that is appropriately narrowly tailored to minimize any unintended side effects and undesirable affect on civil liberties and personal autonomy or privacy (Dershowitz, 2006).

There is a very strong argument that further restricting alcohol advertising is well justified by the government interest of reducing alcoholism, not to mention alcohol-related violent crime, family and personal issues, and the tremendous property damage and human loss of life and suffering attributable to drunk driving. Moreover, even content-based restriction would be irrelevant to the competitive strength of market competitors, since they would apply across the board and to all equally. The only likely negative effect on manufacturers of alcohol products is precisely the objective that increased regulation of the content of alcohol product advertising would hope to achieve: namely, reducing the instances of new users responding to advertising and reducing the ability of manufacturers to drive consumer behavior through deliberate psychological manipulation.

In principle, the most appropriate distinction would be between content that presents specific objective attributes of the product (i.e. taste, quality, versatility, company reputation, etc.) and content that is expressly designed to exploit known psychological and social tendencies conducive to increasing alcohol consumption. In practice, alcohol product advertising copy that promoted flavor and quality, (for example), would be permitted; conversely, advertising copy that exploited the psychological influence of sex appeal, social popularity, or any other desirable attribute or connection to personal identity or, (especially), association with media celebrities or sports franchises (among other things) would be prohibited. Ideally, these restrictions would reduce the first-use of alcohol and would reduce some of the many powerful social influences that increase alcohol abuse in society.

Changes in Business Culture and Educational Culture

In addition to the proposed changes to the manner in which the government regulates alcohol product promotion and advertisement, another approach to reducing alcoholism in society would be the promotion of fundamental changes to elements of business social culture in many fields and to the prominence of alcohol on American college campuses (Hajema, Knobbed, & Drop, 1999). Admittedly, both of those goals would be much more difficult to achieve than the proposed changes to advertising regulation because they would depend on much more subtle (and mainly voluntary) compliance rather than government regulation.