DISTILLED SPIRITS COMPANIES AGREE TO REMOVE ALCOHOL ADVERTISEMENTS FROM SCHOOL LIBRARY MAGAZINES

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., is pleased to announce that members of the distilled spirits industry have agreed to remove their alcohol advertisements from school library editions of five popular magazines - Newsweek, Time, U.S. News and World Report, Sports Illustrated, and People. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) undertook this initiative following encouragement by Attorney General Curran and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that the industry reduce the exposure of children to alcohol advertisements through “selective binding” of magazines most commonly subscribed to by schools.

Research clearly establishes that alcohol advertising has a significant impact on young people’s decisions to drink alcohol. Almost all readers of school library editions are individuals under the legal drinking age, and thus use of selective binding to avoid youth exposure to alcohol advertisements is the only responsible course of conduct.

*** “Selective binding” is a computerized, database-driven binding process which allows publishers to break out regional or interest-specific advertising and/or editorial editions of a given issue.***