People Want Justice, Health, and Opportunity
Across Colombia, we share a powerful vision: a society where every child can grow up safely and where every family can thrive in peace and dignity. Families want to see their children safe, cared for, and able to reach their full potential without being pushed towards harmful products and behaviours. We believe in justice, public well-being, and investing in a better future for all.
But alcohol harm is having a devastating toll on our society, especially our children and youth. It is a problem we all recognise: two out of three Colombians say alcohol is a major concern in our communities. (1) In 2019 alone, alcohol was directly responsible for nearly 10,000 deaths. (2) Behind these numbers are families torn apart, dreams cut short, and communities left to carry the burden.
Revealing the Predatory Practices of Colombia’s Beer Industry
This happening because of the products and practices of the beer industry in Colombia. They are pushing cheap products into our communities and they are promoting their harmful products aggressively, targeting vulnerable people and communities to maximise their private profits. At the same time our society suffers from collectivised harm and costs.
Consider two of the largest companies, Bavaria (owned by multinational beer giant AB InBev) and Andina (part of Central Cervecera, link with multinational beer giant Heineken): both beer conglomerates are flooding the country with advertising campaigns that glorify ultra-cheap prices for their products. In addition, they are blocking political progress on proven public health measures, such as raising alcohol taxes.
Bavaria’s Poker brand has long promoted slogans such as “Pola pa’ todo el parche ¿a cómo? a $2.000” (roughly translated as “Beer for the whole gang – how much? Just 2,000 pesos”), making low price the centrepiece of its messaging. Images and videos captured as early as 2017 and repeated over the years show this is a systematic strategy. From outdoor banners and YouTube spots to Instagram clips and delivery apps, the message they push is clear: beer is cheap and always available.
Andina has followed a similar path, pushing price-cut campaigns on TikTok, YouTube and Facebook that normalise rock-bottom prices.
Instead of acknowledging the harm their products cause, these alcohol corporations double down with predatory pricing and advertising practices that celebrate ultra cheap prices and reach millions of Colombian kids and youth.
The Cost of Cheap Beer: Colombia’s Public Health Crisis
Cheap beer causes high costs for Colombian society.
National data show the consequences: 86.7% of people who used alcohol in the past month reported beer (3). In the school population, 71.4% of those who used alcohol in the past month also pointed to beer (4).
Alcohol is now the leading risk factor for death in people aged 15 to 49 – the youth and young adults that could contribute to thriving communities, happy families, and prosperity in our country. Most of the years of life lost due to alcohol are among people aged 20 to 39. In 2019 alone, around 400 children and adolescents died due to alcohol. (2)
An Unfair Tax System That Fuels Harm
One major reason this harmful environment exists is the preferential treatment beer receives in Colombia’s tax system. Unlike liquor and wine, which are taxed with a specific tariff based on alcohol content (updated annually for inflation) plus an ad valorem tax calculated on the consumer price before taxes, beer is taxed only with an ad valorem tax based on the self-reported industry manufacturing price (5, 6).
This favorable tax treatment for the beer industry keeps the effective tax rate lower per litre of pure alcohol – even though beer is responsible for most of the harm and costs.
To make matters even worse, the beer industry is receiving another preferential treatment: beers below 2.5% alcohol content are classified as “food” and completely exempt from the excise tax, despite WHO concerns that such products normalise alcohol and target young consumers (6).
International comparisons confirm the distortion: Colombia’s beer remains among the cheapest in the region (5). Colombia’s way of taxing the beer industry only benefits the beer industry while failing to serve any public health purpose.
A Proven Solution to Protect Children and Promote Justice
But we can change this. Evidence clearly shows that things could be different. Research from Chile shows that when alcohol prices increase, initiation among adolescents is delayed, and harmful patterns of alcohol consumption become less likely later in life (7). Global evidence from WHO and UNDP confirms that raising alcohol prices through taxation helps prevent underage use, delays initiation, lowers linked diseases, injuries and deaths, and contributes to greater social equity (8).
The lesson is clear: raising alcohol prices through proper taxes protects Colombian society as a whole, and especially children and young people.
Colombia has an opportunity to bring about this change now. Raising alcohol taxes is the single most cost-effective alcohol policy solution to protect children and youth from alcohol harms. It prevents suffering, saves lives, and promotes health and social justice.
Beyond that, pro-health alcohol taxation is a rights-based, pro-equity policy. The harm caused by the beer industry disproportionately affects people in vulnerable and marginalised communities with low socio-economic status. Preventing and reducing harm benefits them the most, while redirecting revenues from the alcohol (including beer) tax increase toward public goods contributes to reducing health inequalities. Healthy taxes promote social justice and strengthen the social contract by prioritising people’s welfare over industry profit interests.
The misconduct of Bavaria and Andina shows how urgent this shift is. Colombia’s government has a responsibility to protect our children and youth from avoidable harm caused by alcohol companies. Healthy taxes are about fairness, prevention, and protection to help us create a society where every child can grow up safely and thrive.
10 Cases of Predatory Practices
Examples of beer companies’ predatory practices in Colombia (PDF)
Sources
[1] Vital Strategies. Public attitudes towards alcohol policy, Colombia: RESET opinion poll results September 2025. New York: Vital Strategies; 2025.
[2] Herrera, JC., Camacho, S. (2024), Estimación de la carga de enfermedad asociada al uso de alcohol en Colombia, PROESA, Documentos de trabajo No. 25.
[3] Ministerio de Justicia y del Derecho; Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social. Estudio Nacional de Consumo de Sustancias Psicoactivas en Colombia – 2019. Bogotá: Observatorio de Drogas de Colombia; 2020.
[4] Ministerio de Justicia y del Derecho; Ministerio de Educación Nacional; Observatorio de Drogas de Colombia. Estudio Nacional de Consumo de Sustancias Psicoactivas en Población Escolar – 2022. Bogotá: Gobierno de Colombia; 2023.
[5] González JF, Herrera JC, Romero L, Maldonado ND. Estudio internacional del control de alcohol: una aplicación para Colombia. PROESA, Documentos de trabajo No. 24. Cali: Universidad Icesi; 2024.
[6] Banco Mundial. Impuestos sanitarios en Colombia: monitoreo, evaluación y oportunidades de mejora en gobernanza. Reporte técnico #200133. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group; 2024.
[7] Paraje G, Araya D, Basu S. Prices, alcohol use initiation and heavy episodic drinking among Chilean youth. Addiction. 2020;115(9):1732-43.
[8] World Health Organization, United Nations Development Programme. Action for health taxes from policy development to implementation: making the case for alcohol taxes. Geneva: WHO, UNDP; 2024.
