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So are they going to be stopping buyers from buying more than 4L in multiple containers? Seems like that will generate more waste, this isn't an eco-friendly policy.
it seems like their issue is the price. "not priced responsibly"
My issue is honestly the marketing. Calling it "the party jug" pretty much tells everyone exactly what it's for, and let's just say it's probably not for your doctor recommended 1-2 drink daily maximum. Now I'm not a teetotaller or anything, but this is obviously directed at quite a young audience, which I think is a bit problematic.
I don't think it's marketed to young people, I think it's marketed to severe alcoholics. There are a shocking number of people who will go through this jug in a day or two.
I agree with the minister's concerns that it's too cheap. I recently moved from BC and it seems that bottom shelf hard liquor in general in Alberta is too cheap.
Calling it "the party jug" pretty much tells everyone exactly what it's for...
...sharing with a large group of people?
this is obviously directed at quite a young audience
To me it seems aimed at people that want to buy a lot of alcohol for not very much money, which tends to be young people, but they don't seem to have done anything in particular to target young people.
1 liter of vodka is more than enough to kill a healthy adult by alcohol poisoning. It's not the size of the container that prevents that. Are these 4 liter jugs less expensive than 1 liter bottles?
If you want to prevent alcohol deaths you should focus on addressing the causes of alcoholism (I'm not an expert but shooting from the hip: loneliness and hopelessness) and drunk driving (again, not an expert but: transit infrastructure).
1 liter of vodka is more than enough to kill a healthy adult by alcohol poisoning.
Laughs in Finnish
I definitely removed some qualifiers to avoid overly hedging my point, so yes I concede that not every healthy adult would be killed by consuming 1L of vodka in a single sitting.
Although I would also point out that a person that thinks that drinking a liter of vodka is laughably safe, is probably not healthy.
You kind of countered your own comment at the end
One of the leading causes of alcoholism is cheap access to alcohol
I've done some toggling and found this article abstract.
and what I have to say is this:
Touche.
Key sentence:
The results also suggested that compared with general price increases, minimum- pricing policies might affect harmful drinkers proportionally more...
I guess I'd be pleased to see the provincial Alberta government embrace epidemiologically based policy making. Especially if they do it consistently and not just when it aligns with their ideology.
For alcohol, because of it's prevalence in society, yet known destructiveness, it is a very prickly topic. Historically we already know that prohibition is the worst solution to the problem and has far worse outcomes.
Why? Seems arbitrary to cry foul about that.
I personally think there should be some hard ethical bounds on marketing when it comes to potentially life wrecking substances. We do this for cigarettes, right?
Now I think humankind's relationship with alcohol is a bit more nuanced, but when alcohol packaging starts to look like sugary cereal boxes, that's where I draw the line. Admittedly this isn't quite there, but it's borderline IMO. I don't think we should be encouraging binge drinking by selling party sized mix packs like this.
Mind you, it's not the size or price that bothers me. My grandma always bought gallon bottles of booze from the US on the cheap, but they'd last her a few years. That's fine. Sell it without fun-dinosaur, and put on a boring-ass, noname vodka label, and it's fine by me.
Just an addendum, I feel similarly about marketing of sugary cereal to children.
Edit: Lol, why'd you ask if you were just going to downvote and not engage with the response?
I don't vote on here, I never do. I didn't do anything to your post. You have your view. I think it's a bit arbitrary. Take it a step further and ban porn. It sounds like arbitrarily picking and choosing what you think is bad for society and needing to control society for them. Like the "video games cause violence" liars.
A very vague and relative metric. Seems very economical to me.
"Responsibly" here mean "more expensively", if you read the article. I'm not sure if this guy's specific issues is public health or protecting the competition. "I don't think a four-litre plastic jug of vodka adds to the quality of the distillery industry that we have in this provinceβ kind of implies the latter.
Eh, that's like 10 bucks more than if you were to buy 4 1 litre smirnoffs.
In Canada? And Smirnoff vodka(40% ABV), not Smirnoff ice(4.5% ABV)?
https://shop.realcanadianliquorstore.ca/collections/smirnoff
I'm looking at vodka, this is also in America. But the price isn't that much higher. I was wrong about it being 15. It's actually 16.99.
A 1140 ml Smirnoff In the same region as this store is $33.98, which makes the $49.95 cost for a 4L quite low.
Jesus christ yeah, ok. I should have narrowed my search by region.
Really puts into perspective how fucking easy it is to get alcohol in the U.S. Kinda scary actually.
I wonder what the issue is. Seems to me that using something as ubiquitous as the 1 gallon milk jug makes sense. Are they really concerned that someone that's tempted to drink the entire gallon will be stopped by having to purchase more than one container? The article has a strong focus on the pricing of the vodka... so, who on the Canadian Liquor Board is getting paid to keep prices up? "Spirit of the Albertans" -- seems disingenuous to say that the locals are in support of price fixing, as the article seems to imply.
The end of the article hints at spirits-makers being able to bulk purchase alcohol to be blended, and how newer distileries/spirits-makers aren't required to make the same investment into producing their own base alcohol as was previously required. The way it reads, makes it seem like the article is being sponsored by the big makers in terms of how "small makers" have the unfair advantage and that it's the small guys lowering prices that is the bad thing.
My interpretation could be off, but my tl;dr is corporate has a problem with prices effecting profits, so hit-piece on the independents it is.
Your interpretation is in line with conversations I've had with store clerks. The big distilleries, Smirnoff etc, don't like the free market competition and apparently this isn't the first time they've gotten the province involved.
As I admittedly don't actually know much of Canadian politics, especially so at the provincial level, I had to make some broad assumptions but it seems that such practices are just a given at this point, regardless of geographical location. I found out recently that despite living in the land of the so-called free, it is apparently very much frowned upon to just like... open a roadside tavern for weary travelers. Something about health codes and livestock in common areas or something .
Iβve met some pretty sexy livestock.
It could be a combination tavern/bordello.
The 'issue,' as far as I'm concerned, is this:
Pictures of the jug and price circulated as a funny/embarrassing " 'berta, fuck yeah!" meme. Absolutely nobody cared in the slightest bit.
So of course Marlaina and co. jumped on it to make headlines and noise about being the authority on good corporate behaviour, and looking out for the best interests of Albertans, etc..
It's UCP noise-making and flag-waving, nothing more.
Ah, sounds like that Marlaina person would snub their nose at me. My second thought after "Huh, gallon of vodka makes perfect sense" was "bet college me could have double-fisted them and lived to tell the tale".
The issue is that we drink 4L of liquid out of bags, not out of jugs, so now they'll need to change the container to fit Canadian tradition.
No bags in Alberta, that's just ET and AT time zones (maybe newfies too? Not sure)
You ever been on the swish hard?
Fine, we'll put it in fokin bags ya hoser
Quebec noises
I'll stick to my gallon of PCP.
Zack? Zack Crager?
Zach Cregger*
I wonder how many microplastics the alcohol leached from that jug.
Barely any if you drank it fast enough.
FYI just about any liquor product manufactured in North America has spent substantial time in an HDPE tote.
Party's over womp womp