Drinking in films and other stuff

The Institute of Ideas has asked various people to nominate one law for repeal. For me, the sheer vindictiveness of the smoking ban made it the obvious candidate. Read my brief article here.

Meanwhile, the censorious fanatics who want films to be given an adult rating if they depict smoking are, quite predictably, trying to do the same with drinking. Activist-quackademics at Bristol University have produced research claiming that 15 year olds who see lots of drinking on screen are 20 per cent more likely to have drunk alcohol. Ignoring the multiple confounding factors that could be behind this piddling little result, the study concludes...

“Adverse outcomes from alcohol use are a large societal public health problem and rating films according to alcohol content may reduce problem-related alcohol use and associated harm in young people.”

This is not the first attempt to use junk science to lobby for censorship. Ian Gilmore, along with the vapers' friend John Britton, had a go a few years ago. And Glantz has recently started naming and shaming actors who smoke in films (he really hates The Lord of the Rings). His claim that an adult rating for films that depict smoking would save a million lives is a leading contender for the most risible 'public health' claim in the world—in a very crowded field. Glantz's website is always good for a laugh.

Finally, are you familiar with the surreal genius of the NGO-taunting Live from Golgafrincham website? If not, you should be. They have a video for their new project Brain Zero. I could embed it here but it needs to be seen in context for it to make sense. Even then, it probably won't, but that's kind of the point.

Go visit.