New Report on Alcohol Marketing

That the Parliament notes the publication of Alcohol Focus Scotland's report, Realising our rights: How to protect people from alcohol marketing; understands that research has established a causal connection between children and young people’s exposure to alcohol marketing and drinking, and that alcohol marketing leads young people to start drinking earlier, to drink more if they are already drinking, and to drink at heavy or problematic levels; believes that alcohol marketing provides the building blocks for current and future behaviour by affecting how adolescents think and feel; considers the report's findings that alcohol marketing causes effects that have the potential to translate into increased alcohol use for people with or at risk of an alcohol problem; notes the recommendation in the report that countries should introduce comprehensive statutory restrictions on alcohol marketing; further notes the call on the World Health Organization to lead international action to address digital marketing and to develop a convention that will support both national and international efforts to prevent and reduce alcohol harm more broadly, and considers that regulating alcohol marketing would reduce people in Scotland’s exposure to alcohol marketing, which it believes would in turn reduce alcohol consumption and harm, helping to improve the health and wellbeing of the nation.