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Legal
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2006-10-20 03:20:22-04
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Alcohol restrictions may face court hurdle
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Bangkok, Oct 20: Alcohol importers and producers in Thailand are preparing to take their case against a planned ban on all alcohol advertising to the country's highest court. The Federation on Alcohol Control of Thailand (FACT) has threatened to ask the Supreme Administrative Court to call a halt to the Public Health Ministry's austere alcohol-control measures. "We are discussing with the federation's lawyers about filing the petition as the Public Health Ministry has abused its power by enforcing new rules without consulting private operators," Boonchuay Tongcharoenpulporn, secretary-general of the new organisation, said yesterday. The ministry has proposed a full ban on alcohol advertising on television, in newspapers and on billboards to reduce the country's alcohol consumption, reports the Nation. Under the new regulations, to take effect on 5 December, health authorities had planned to raise the minimum legal age for those allowed to buy alcohol from 18 to 25 years. However, the cabinet has asked concerned agencies to reconsider the bill. However, the ban will not be applied to printed matter that is published overseas or live-TV programmes being broadcast from overseas, for which Thailand is not the main target audience. The move will require alcohol producers to list ingredients on labels for any liquid with more than five milligrams of ethanol per liter. A warning label on bottles of alcoholic beverages has to be placed to alert consumers to potential risks of drinking. Last year, sales of liquor and beer around the country stood at 2,446 million litres - up from 2,307 million liters in 2003. The amount of people with cirrhosis of the liver or classed as alcoholics also jumped from 3.2 per one million liters of liquor/beer sales to nearly 4 patients last year. Disease Control Department director general Dr Thawat Suntrajarn said alcoholic drinks caused more than 60 diseases, and a huge number of casualties. Thailand already bans alcohol ads from 5:00 am until 10:00 pm, but Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla says that advertisers have increasingly ignored the order. The most recent statistics showed that in April, illegal alcohol ads jumped 126 percent from nine months earlier, he said. Violators of the new rules will face up to three months in prison or a 30,000 baht (800 dollar) fine. The health ministry estimates that the ban could result in annual losses of 2.5 billion baht (66 million dollars) to the advertising business. Thais are among the world's heaviest drinkers. A health ministry study two years ago found that per capita, Thais consumed 41.6 liters of alcohol in 2001, up 67 percent from a decade earlier. That placed Thailand only behind Portugal, Ireland, the Bahamas and the Czech Republic, the study found.
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