Bid for warnings on alcohol bottles

Office of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Committee director Dr Saman Futrakul said the draft would soon be submitted to the National Alcohol Beverage Policy Committee for consideration. The draft content included the requirement for alcohol beverage manufacturers to put an image and message that warned about dangers of alcohol consumption on the bottles and packaging boxes, he said. The warning section should cover at least one fourth of label space. The image, a picture of drunk-driving accident, would run with a warning message and the alcohol and cigarette hotline number 1422 or 0-2590-3342, he said. The punishment for not showing such sign would be one year in prison and/or a Bt100,000 in fine. The draft law for the alcohol ban on trains set the punishment as six months in prison and/or Bt10,000 fine.

Stop Drink Network director Teera Watcharapranee commented that the two draft laws would be another strategy to control youths’ alcohol drinking problems.