Drinking vice versus wine pleasure

Both Italy and Spain have a long wine tradition. In these areas wine is a very common drink because of cultural and anthropological reasons. Wine is, indeed, one of the alcoholic beverages that Italians prefer drinking and it is part of their meals in 84% of cases. Together with this responsible consumption of alcohol, over the last few years, an increase of risk factors related to alcohol abuse has been reported.

In Italy and Spain the phenomenon of “Binge drinking ” is more and more common. “Binge drinking” describes the intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time (4/5 glasses in two hours apart from meals).  From the sixth survey conducted in Italy by Doxa, in collaboration with the Permanent Observatory on Youth and Alcohol, it emerges that 20,4%  of boys aged 13-24 experienced binge drinking, while the percentage of girls is much lower (8,6%). Spanish data are much worse than Italian ones.  In Spain, indeed, 28,4% of boys and 17,4% of girls aged 15-24 experienced binge drinking.

This is the reason why the FAD (Fundación de Ayuda contra la Drogadicción), a private institution, presented last week a campaign of public awareness called “Que debemos hacer con el alcohol?” (What should we do with alcohol?). The foundation created two commercials lasting 30 seconds each and a website (www.quedebemoshacerconelalcohol.com) with the purpose of gathering comments concerning the question “Que debemos hacer con el alcohol?”.

Considered the alarming data mentioned above, this initiative is undoubtedly well intentioned, but it may prove to be quite weak if it will not be supported by a widespread prevention strategy.  The Italian situation is quite different instead. Over the last few years, indeed, many initiatives have been taken both by private institutions, such as the Permanent Observatory on Youth and Alcohol, and public institutions such as the Observatory on Smoke, Alcohol and Drug which is part of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (the leading technical and scientific public body of the Italian National Health Service). These two foundations have successfully involved many youths, parents and owners of pubs and discos.  However, on the legislative side, Italian Law tends to focus more on penalties than on measures aimed at raising awareness on this subject.  A negative role is still played by advertisements which, for obvious reasons,  give reassuring and false  messages concerning alcoholic beverages. We cannot forget that the excessive consumption of these beverages is very dangerous especially for youths who are the main target of such ads.