Ethical considerations
Changing the existing laws on alcohol production and consumption means that there will be a group that will be disadvantaged by these changes while another one will benefit. The urge of the report was to develop a policy that would help in reducing the alcohol-related injuries among the underage youth. Addressing this problem, the study proposed that a policy controlling the exposure of alcohol to the youths is more effective, which would be addressed by changing the existing policies. However, making these changes implies that the alcohol companies will be inconvenienced as well as the youths. The study in this part addresses the ethical considerations that need to be considered after changing the policies and the population affected will be addressed.
Paquin (2011) claims that nursing practice is grounded in the regulations, professional codes, and standards. This follows the endorsement of the nursing code in 1970 that perceived patient as the center of the nursing practice. This applies to the proposed policy where nurses advocate for a policy for the well-being of the patients. As such, the proposed policy aim at controlling the way alcohol is exposed to the youths. The attempts of regulating the advertisement of alcohol as well as in the selling points constitute to the ethical dilemma. First, there exist alcohol policy that safeguards the advertisement of alcohol. According to these policies, alcohol advertisement should be decent, legal, truthful, and honest as a way of being socially responsible to the society and the target consumers while adhering to the rules of competition (Jones, 2013). With such policies and strong rules safeguarding them, it becomes hard to propose a change in the existing policies, which results to the ethical dilemma. To solve this dilemma, the existing advertisement rules should be revised to fit the proposed policy.
Besides, alcohol advertisement has to abide by the national rules directing how advertisement should be carried. Some of these rules propose that misleading or false advertisement should not be used to influence society. Alcohol companies need to abide by these rules for them to carry their advertisements. However, there emanates an ethical dilemma when the advertisement is exercised in the media accessible to the youths or by advertising using a youthful person despite the adherence to these rules. Such considerations should be made before making a change to the existing alcohol advertisement policies (Jones, 2013). This dilemma should be addressed by ensuring that despite the robust rules safeguarding the advertisement rules where the media used are hard for the youths to access. Moreover, alcohol advertisements should not encourage youths by using the appropriate advertising settings such as using older people using the product and using the same rules in the advertisement of liquor and beer.
Another ethical dilemma emanates when the alcohol exposure comes from the parents. This is prevalent when underage people attend events and occasions with their parents and get to drink in their presence. Moreover, parents may meet or go to the drinking points with their children, thus exposing them to alcohol despite the existing alcohol advertisement policies. Besides, this occurrence leads to the ethical dilemma of whether these youths should be allowed to visit the drinking points with their parents or relatives. Such dilemma limits the effectiveness of the proposed policy that aim at regulating alcohol exposure to the youths. In this case, the dilemma should be solved by allowing the parents to take part implementing and promoting the proposed policy from drinking by preventing their children to attend these occasions. Moreover, parents can be advised to stop exposing their children to alcohol by limiting their attendance to these events.
The policy involves a number of ethics and laws that can be used to promote it. The first ethical issue applicable for this policy is the reduction of the alcohol advertisement exposed to the youths. This involves the individuals used to carry out the advertisements such as the prohibition of under 21 years doing the advertisement (Gordon, MacKintosh, & Moodie, 2010). Another ethical move made to promote the advocated policy is restricting children from attending the occasions where alcohol will be used as it will be at their disposal; thus increasing the likelihood of drinking. Besides, it is unethical for the alcohol company to promote excessive consumption of alcohol.
There exist laws that promote the advocated policy of reducing the exposure of alcohol to the youths. For instance, in Australia, it is prohibitive for an advertisement post that is appealing to children or reveals alcohol as being a depiction of mood or success enhancement. Moreover, false and misleading advertisements are banned as such strategies promote illegal transactions. Consequentially, there exist laws that prohibit advertisement targeting the minors (Jones & Magee, 2011). Such rules prohibit the use of words such as a child, children, and juvenile as well as images that may stimulate youths in buying alcohol during the advertisement (Gordon, MacKintosh, & Moodie, 2010). Apart from media advertisement, some alcohol companies use marketing strategies that expose and influence the attitude of the young people on alcohol. However, there are laws that prohibit some of these marketing strategies used by alcohol companies. Some of the areas prohibit outdoor alcohol advertisement where children are likely to be available. This law prohibits any outdoor advertisement that targets the youth where the use of printed posters, t-shirts, billboards, and paintings are forbidden. The use of such laws and ethics is applicable in promoting the proposed policy in regulating the exposition of alcohol to the underage youths.
However, despite the existence of laws and ethics that promote the advocated policy, youths are faced with various ethical challenges. First, youths are prone to the trial and error activities, which leads them to test what they see in the advertisements (Bonomo, 2005). Following the puberty, emotional, and cognitive development that underage youths go through, they feel a great urge of drinking the beer from what they see in the advertisements. They share their experiences with their peers as well as the adults. Bonomo (2005) claim that adults set the boundaries of the youths behaviors; thus influencing their drinking attitudes and behaviors. Another ethical challenge with youths is their explorative nature, which leads them to the experimenting the effects of alcohol among other drugs. Along the experimentation purposes, underage youth face the same pressure that leads the adults into drinking; thus ending up drinking alcohol anytime they get this opportunity (Bonomo, 2005). Another ethical challenge for the underage youths is the technological advancement where they easily access alcohol adverts through different media despite the existing prohibitions. Brand alcohol names are being used to label clothes together with bright colors to appeal to the young people who are vivacious with fashion trends. These ethical challenges have countered the attempts to address the alcohol exposure to the underage youth.
Summary
The study has revealed the important aspects concerning the alcohol use among the youths. It has been made clear that alcohol affects not only the users but also the society recounting the crimes caused by the persons under alcohol influence. This, therefore, necessitated the need for addressing the alcohol use among the underage youths who are prone to these alcohol-related crimes and injuries. The study has highlighted the common approaches made to ensure that alcohol use among this population is limited. The first advocacy campaign used is an endorsement of the underage act that prohibits alcohol use for persons under 21 years. The next advocacy campaign revealed in the study is the use of federal and state taxes to regulate alcohol access by the minors. However, these strategies are not efficient as alcohol use among the underage is a prevalent behavior in most of the states. As a result, the study proposed a policy of reducing the alcohol exposure to the youths.
The proposed policy aimed at reducing alcohol exposure to the young people through advertisement and in the selling points. The implementation of this policy is more effective by changing the existing laws on the alcohol exposure through advertisements and in the selling points. Existing ethics and laws promote the proposed policy. First, the study has emphasized that it is unethical to promote excessive alcohol use through advertisement or advertise using a minor or products that appeal to this population. Moreover, the proposed policy faces ethical dilemmas that make it hard for its adoption. For instance, the reported has revealed that there exist rules in the alcohol industry that determines how advertisement is carried, which according to the industry, it is sufficient to guide their advertisement without external intervention. Lastly, the study has reported ethical challenges facing the youths where the advent of technology is a major challenge together with the urge of experimentation
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