“NGOs Demand Alcohol Tax Increases and Advertising Restrictions; 2026 World Cup Could Drive Up Consumption, They Warn”
El Universal reports:
“Civil society representatives denounced a public health crisis caused by alcohol use in Mexico. They proposed raising taxes, restricting alcohol advertising, and labelling alcoholic beverages to communicate their link to seven types of cancer.”
“Each year, alcohol use causes 40,000 deaths and carries a social cost of 552 billion pesos. With the World Cup in Mexico, ‘the alcohol industry’s marketing strategies will intensify. Without protective policies, progress in reducing consumption is at risk against aggressive strategies to capture new market segments, especially young people and women.'”
“Alonso Robledo, spokesperson for the Red de Acción sobre Alcohol, stated that increasing the IEPS on alcoholic beverages would generate around 100 billion pesos – but ‘that is still far from the costs associated with alcohol harm, which are around 552 billion pesos.'”
Other Articles on Same Topic
- FIFA Fan Fest at Mexico City’s Zócalo to feature the largest screen of the 2026 World Cup (Infobae)
- Civil society organisations called for including alcohol taxes in the 2026 Economic Package (Expoknews)
Assessment
This joint press conference by RASA, Salud Justa Mx, Cáncer Warriors de México, and allied organisations marks the clearest public articulation yet of the connection between the 2026 World Cup and the urgent need for alcohol policy best buys in Mexico. The coalition explicitly warned that without protective policies, the tournament will become a vehicle for the alcohol industry to intensify alcohol marketing and normalisation aimed at young people and women – a population among whom alcohol use is rising sharply.
RASA’s proposed tax increases on beer come with projected outcomes: a 39% reduction in cirrhosis deaths and a 2% reduction in family violence injuries by 2040. Salud Justa Mx’s call to reform the legal definition of alcoholic beverages in the General Health Law addresses a loophole that currently allows alcohol products marketed at children – such as whisky-filled chocolates – to evade regulation.
The fiscal benefits of raising alcohol taxes are increasingly difficult for the government to ignore. The OECD recently recommended that Mexico review its alcohol taxes as part of a broader reform package that could raise revenue by 4.8 percentage points of GDP. Yet President Sheinbaum’s government excluded alcohol from the 2026 pro-health tax package – even as it raised taxes on sugary drinks and tobacco.
The coalition’s call for alcohol tax increases in the same way exposes the government’s inconsistency: if the government accepts the logic of pro-health taxation for tobacco and sugar, the exclusion of alcohol – a Group 1 carcinogen responsible for 40,000 deaths per year in Mexico – is a political choice, not an evidence-based one.
The World Cup countdown is now part of the strategic frame. With FIFA Fan Fest events confirmed in Mexico City’s Zócalo – featuring what organisers call the “largest screen of the tournament” – the scale of alcohol industry exposure to millions of people, including children and young people, is becoming tangible.
The government that raised taxes on tobacco and sugary drinks now faces a direct test: whether it will extend the same pro-health logic to alcohol before the 2026 World Cup transforms Mexico into the alcohol industry’s largest marketing arena, putting children and youth in harm’s way.