Unintended consequences

There is yet another new scheme to help us be more what the government would like us to be: a nation of sober people. The drinks companies (most of them) have agreed to put the number of alcohol units on drinks bottles. So we'll check the content and drink less.

Hmmm. Well, apart from the obnoxious assumption that the government can legislate to make us good, this is likely to create some results not quite intended by the do-gooders who come up with these schemes. It stems from the psychology of youngsters going to pubs.

When I was a teenager, we went to the local bar and consumed Watneys Starlight beer. By the gallon. All night long.
Eventually we cottoned on to the fact that it was actually very low in alcohol content, so low it could legally be sold to children (so it was said.) We moved on to Guinness and proper beer, with a taste.
We guessed that the Starlight beer had been developed to enable teenagers to drink large quantities.
And it so happened that our idea was correct. 30 years later I happened to speak to a marketing man (not in the drinks trade) and he mentioned that he had worked on the advertising campaign for Starlight. It had, indeed, been designed as a "session drink", to be consumed in a a large quantity over a period.
The last thing Watneys would have wanted was for teenagers to realise the low alcohol content, They would have switched immediately to something stronger.
Advertising the units of alcohol in a drink won't put people off at all. It will become a badge of honour (cor, guess what I drank last night?!!)

We are indeed ruled by morons.