This week, Advertiser columnist Ruth Wishart reflects on a new report showing how Scots children are influenced by alcohol advertising and sponsorship.

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Some years ago, in a move welcomed by health professionals everywhere, the Scottish Parliament voted to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol. 

Its aims were twofold: to help reduce problem drinking in a nation historically prone to early deaths from alcohol and to stop addicts and under age children having cheap access.

This last week a new report outlined the ways in which children were actively encouraged to imbibe through the ingenious use of marketing and sponsorship. And once again it urged the imposition of price controls.

The fact that this hasn’t yet happened is down to last ditch legal barriers thrown up by the Scottish Whisky Association which comes up with ever more ludicrous alibis for preventing a measure it knows to be in the nation’s interest.

Aware that the health argument is lost, the SWA spokesperson was reduced to mourning the potential loss to the country of the events it sponsors. 

What a blow to tourism and the economy that would be, they said.

We have been down this road before when the tobacco industry, in the teeth of incontrovertible evidence about how it encouraged young smokers, fought a last ditch bid through the courts to keep sexy packaging, sports sponsorship and advertising. 

It was not a pretty sight. And neither is the SWA’s constant frustration of this health initiative.