Culture clash: alcohol marketing and public health aspirations

It is of no coincidence that a number of recent Harm Reduction Digests have addressed the issue of the reduction of alcohol-related harm. Despite the dominant focus on illicit drug use in the popular discourse, alcohol remains Australia's number one drug problem, as it is in many other developed countries. In this Digest Munro and de Wever use the 'four Ps' of marketing: product, price, place and promotion, to critique the two decades industry self-regulation of alcohol marketing. They conclude that if we are going to develop policies which effectively change Australian drinking culture to reduce alcohol-related harm, we need first to accept that the alcohol industry and the health field have separate and conflicting interests.