If beer drinking among teenagers is a health issue, I can see people who want to deal with that issue objecting to beer advertising that appeals to the teenager. Advertisers keep pushing the envelope. Maybe I’m just getting old, but it seems to me there is an upswing in scantily clad, nubile women and sexual innuendo. I know teen boys are attracted to the idea of popping a cold one and being instantly surrounded by beautiful women who are not just attracted to their adult behavior, but maybe loosened up if they join in with a beer.

The industry doesn’t regulate itself, so there is only one way to write rules that deal with these problems….and that is a blanket ban. But this goes in cycles, I see plenty of spirits ads on TV these days, in spite of the ban by networks. The ads just have gone to cable.

None of this will hurt wine, and it will just make you, Steve, more important in the marketing of these products.

However, one could argue that ad bans would reduce choice and variety/diversity and drive some producers or distributors out of business. There probably is a deal of truth to that – if one makes a mental experiment of it and thinks it through. I am not convinced, though, that banning booze ads in TV and in public places would lead to plummeting quality and the collapse of an industry.

Every hobby and pursuit has its own subculture which propagates knowledge of their object of interest. Variety and diversity can be sustained and kept robust – even with an illegal product. Case in point: High Times Magazine. Yes, it has an anti-prohibition agenda, but the bulk of its content engages the culture of pot, not the prohibition of the product.