“Football season is in full bore and with it comes the infamous television commercials. The ad agencies are doing all they can on a weekly basis to sway buyers with their comical slogans and witty characters. In watching some of the games this weekend, I noticed that the funniest videos always seem to be from the makers of alcohol.”
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Football season is in full bore and with it comes the infamous television commercials.

The ad agencies are doing all they can on a weekly basis to sway buyers with their comical slogans and witty characters.

In watching some of the games this weekend, I noticed that the funniest videos always seem to be from the makers of alcohol.

Budweiser’s Clydesdale horses, Bud Light’s new foam finger-beer can coolie, all hilarious and all promoting their own brand image on the brains of those watching.

But how can alcohol companies advertise their product while cigarette and tobacco companies are prohibited from doing the same?

Both goods are addictive, both have ill health effects, yet one is regulated and even taxed in such a way as to drive them out of the market.

Tobacco companies have been hard hit with recent federal tax hikes from $.39 a pack to $1.01, or a 258 percent increase.

Makers of clove cigarettes have recently had their products banned by the government, with officials saying that this is to prevent teenagers from being attracted to tobacco at young ages.

If those government officials, including the president who authorized the ban, used the same logic than they would be obligated to ban a whole host of other products that are, in their minds, detrimental to the well being of our youth.

What about fast food? Carbonated beverages? Oreos?

If these people were consistent they would at least ban advertising of these products during football season, as the last two weeks of Monday Night Football have had the highest ratings of any cable television show for the year- the two averaged 13 million.

Last Sunday night’s game between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys had 25 million viewers.

According to CNN, four percent of people who watch professional football are teenagers, meaning that there were approximately one million teenagers who watched the Cowboys-Giants game.

If these one million teenagers are too stupid to be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want to smoke than how can they possibly be expected to be able to know whether they want to consume alcohol or not or go to McDonald’s for a cheeseburger?

Are the people in the government smarter than you and I?

The last time I checked the government couldn’t even run the post office without running a bottom line that is in the red.

Is there any situation in the history of this nation in which a government entity has run itself in a better manner than a private company has?

Why should these same people be running your life and mine?

Let the tobacco makers publicize their product; let the alcohol companies make us laugh at halftime.

It is our preference, we know the consequences, and in our minds, maybe the enjoyment we get out of drinking beer or smoking cigars outweighs the risk of getting cancer or liver disease, but it is my choice to be lived with, not anyone’s on Capitol Hill.

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