Public Policy Campaigns

Special Movement and Support on the Alcohol Control Act

In 2006, StopDrink Network and its partners of over 200 organizations jointly push forward for an endorsement of the first Alcohol Control Act in Thailand.  The legislation draft covered restriction on the minimum age of purchaser, total ban on alcohol advertising, restricting sales outlet, selling hours and marketing techniques, funding rehabilitation center and requiring a warning label on alcohol beverage.


To persuade the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) to pass this bill, StopDrink Network and its 246 partners organized a National Marathon covers all four regions in Thailand. Through this effort, they presented a petition with 13 million signatures in favor of the Alcohol Control Act along with a supporting letter from Global Alcohol Policy Alliance (GAPA) to the NLA. In addition, the Alcohol Related-Harms Prevention Campaign Network with its 256 network partners of more than 1,500 people gathered in front of the Parliament to demonstrate their strong support to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) on the alcohol control bill.

After a long journey, the NLA finally passed the Alcohol Control Act on December 21, 2007 and it was fully enforced in February 2008.

For more detail on the Alcohol Control Act in Thailand, please visit the Publications

Monitoring Effort on Marketing Strategy of Alcohol Industry

StopDrink Network works with community-based partners throughout the country in monitoring the alcohol industry’s and its allies’ activities on sale, marketing and advertising. Through this effort, we found many violations of the Alcohol Control Act. We are working with other organizations to ensure that the law has been fully enforced.

Opposition on Listing an Alcohol Company in the Stock Exchange of Thailand
Three hundred eighty four organizations including StopDrink Network formed “the Network against Alcohol in the Stock Exchange”. The primary goal is to stop the effort of Thai Beverage Public Company Limited (ThaiBev) to be listed in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET.)
 
ThaiBev is the largest brewer and distiller in Thailand with 98% of its income from spirit and beer sales; 96% of its revenue is from domestic sales.
 
ThaiBev retains its effort to apply for listing ordinary shares with SET. This led to a wide range of public opposition. Massive crowds from civil society organizations included more than 10,000 Buddhist monks, religious representatives, and many groups of Thai citizens joined forces to demonstrate their position and protest the listing of the alcohol business in the Thai stock market.
 
Our interest is to improve the public health of Thai society. Alcohol abuse is one of our major concerns. Alcohol consumption in Thailand has increased tremendously. During 1999-2003, the market growth rate of beer and spirit in Thailand were 4 and 8 times respectively higher than the growth rate of the world market. To battle the problem, Thai government recently enacted the first Alcohol Control laws; and several community-based organizations have been working together in promoting anti-alcohol campaigns.
 
With that in mind, permitting an alcohol company to be traded publicly in the Stock Exchange of Thailand is against the country and its citizens’ principle to improve quality of life. The alcohol company’s interest is to raise more capital, increase their revenue from sales, and gain other financial benefits such as saving 2,000 million Baht from tax exempt.  To achieve their financial goal and satisfy their stakeholders, they would find loop holes in the laws to increase their sales. Such business activities will worsen the social problems in the long run. The financial gains of the cooperation will be on the national expenses.
 
We plead all of the parties involved in the decision making to seriously take in the consideration of social responsibility and the benefits to Thailand and its citizens before approving ThaiBev to be listed in SET.   
 
For more detail on this effort, please click here.