Media Snapshots

Assessment

The rise in the number of women seeking support through Alcoholics Anonymous is a noteworthy development. It suggests both increasing awareness of the negative impacts of alcohol and a rising burden of alcohol harm among women – likely driven by targeted alcohol marketing tactics from the alcohol industry.

The new reports indicate the need for urgent government action to protect health, social well-being, economic development.

With Brazil’s tax reform process ongoing, the new reports mark a key opportunity for alcohol policy advocacy to position alcohol taxation as a tool to reduce affordability, prevent harm, and fund much needed treatment and recovery support services.

Assessment

The debate around Brazil’s forthcoming Selective Tax (IS) is gaining momentum, and there are encouraging signs that alcohol taxation is being taken seriously as a tool to prevent and reduce harm. 

The media discourse is reflecting different perspective and interests in the alcohol tax rates.

On the one hand, concerns and “reservations” about the selective tax are circulating in the media discourse. But even in this discourse, there is acknowledgment that the selective tax, including alcohol excise taxes, help raise much needed revenue. Another concern is about how the alcohol excise tax reform tackles beer – the biggest part of the alcohol market in Brazil. But even in discourses that might benefit the powerful beer industry in Brazil, there’s attention to the country’s alcohol burden regarding alcohol’s death toll and alcohol’s economic costs. Narratives that dilute the effectiveness of alcohol taxation persist but are not dominant.

This indicates that alcohol policy advocacy is shaping the public discourse and that the efforts of the RESET Alcohol Initiative in Brazil are fruitful.

Jeff Drope, from RESET partner Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has added timely and influential support for raising alcohol taxes in an evidence-based and ambitious way. His evidence-informed proposal strengthens the public health case for ensuring the Selective Tax includes alcohol tax rates at meaningful levels.

Momentum is also growing globally. The World Health Organisation’s new “3 by 35 Initiative” calls on countries to increase the real prices of alcohol, tobacco, and sugary drinks by at least 50% by 2035. Brazil’s tax reform offers a pathway to align with this goal and join global efforts to reduce non-communicable diseases while strengthening health financing.

Clearly, there is moment in the public and media discourse with local attention and awareness and global initiatives providing additional support. For alcohol policy advocates, this means a wide-open window of opportunity to advance the public health, social justice, and sustainability rationale for the raising alcohol taxes. At the same time, countering attempts by the alcohol industry to pollute the discourse remain important.

“EAC moves to harmonise alcohol excise duty amid IMF push, eyes end to special tax treatments”

Food Business Middle East and Africa reports:

“The East African Community (EAC) has reached a consensus on harmonising excise duty for alcoholic products across partner states, in a move aimed at promoting market integration, reducing tax-related distortions, and curbing illicit trade. This initiative is being carried out with the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is providing technical assistance to the bloc.

“The decision, which follows years of deliberations, is part of the broader tax harmonisation efforts first approved by the EAC Council of Ministers in 2019. However, implementation had remained slow until the recent push.

“For alcohol, the Fiscal Affairs Committee agreed on a minimum duty of US$6 per litre of 100 percent alcohol content, translating to approximately US$0.30 per litre of beer, US$0.72 per litre of wine, and US$2.40 per litre of spirits.

“The rate applies uniformly to both locally produced and imported alcoholic beverages and is designed to uphold principles under the EAC Treaty, the Customs Union Protocol, and World Trade Organization rules. Dafa noted that the uniform rate would ensure neutrality, simplicity, and predictability in alcohol taxation.”

Assessment

This is a remarkable policy shift in the East African Community with potential for multiple benefits. But the decision requires analysis to ensure alcohol excise taxes rise in real terms and that declines can be avoided in the respective countries.

The decision to harmonise alcohol excise taxes sets a precedent for aligning fiscal policy with health and development goals, in line with WHO’s recommendations and the new 3×35 Initiative.

The new rate structure reflects best practices in alcohol taxation: it is specific (based on alcohol content), uniform, and aims to be neutral and predictable. This creates potential for a triple-win scenario: generating revenue, reducing harm and costs, and closing tax loopholes that alcohol companies have long exploited. The alcohol excise tax reform challenges outdated special tax treatments that often serve corporate interests instead of the public good.

At the same time, implementation, enforcement, tracking and tracing, and proper monitoring will be critical. Political will at the national level, capacity for cross-border cooperation, and shielding the reform from alcohol industry interference will determine its success.

• In Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and possibly Uganda, the harmonisation will raise alcohol taxes, reducing affordability and aligning with public health goals.
• It may stabilise tax revenue by closing loopholes and ending harmful tax competition.
• It supports specific taxation based on ethanol content – a best-practice approach per WHO and World Bank.

This reform could mark a strategic opportunity for the EAC to lead on smart alcohol policy. In the Baltic region, cooperation and coordination around alcohol taxation have had positive effects.

Assessment

The latest developments from Colombia confirm alcohol policy advocates’ warnings: removing the regional alcohol retail monopoly is driving up competition, availability, and marketing. What was framed as “market liberalization” is rapidly becoming a commercial arms race to the bottom.

For example in the Tolima department, this concern has become a reality. Local brands are losing ground fast to national and international ones, and politicians are already calling for “commercial aggressiveness” in response – a shift in tone that underscores how abandoning regulation of the alcohol industry is fuelling strategies to drive up alcohol use. But this will lead to more harm and even higher costs.

The developments in departments across Colombia reveal severe policy incoherences: local governments ignore their human rights obligations to protect the people from preventable harm; they pursue a narrow focus on revenue from alcohol sales, ignoring the harms and costs in the short-, medium-, and long-term; and drain scarce public resources to drive up alcohol consumption that only benefits private profits, while causing more suffering and public costs due to rising alcohol harm.

These examples provide alcohol policy advocates with concrete evidence to level-up calls for national-level alcohol policy action. Colombia urgently needs to implement higher and evidence-based standards – for alcohol marketing, availability, and pricing – to protect people’s health and societal development from the greed of private profit maximisation.

With tax reform still under debate, there is a still an opening to illustrate the importance and efficacy of alcohol taxation to achieve a quadruple win that the commercial drive in the departments cannot:

1. Reduce alcohol consumption, harms, and costs,
2. Raise much needed government revenue,
3. Invest in essential government services to benefit the people, and
4. Promote social justice, sustainable development and economic prosperity.

Assessment

The alcohol industry is exploiting the recent decline in domestic excise revenue – tax receipts from beer falling nearly 14% – to push a familiar narrative: that alcohol taxes were too high and driving the shift to illicit products. Alcohol industry-aligned media voices are actively pushing the flawed concept that alcohol taxes were “punitive” and to blame for a national health crisis. This narrative deliberately ignores the role of inadequate enforcement, a flawed tracking and tracing system that is being abused by alcohol companies, and industry non-compliance.

But one cause of the drop in excise tax receipts from beer is the reduction of the beer tax by the Kenyan government when they changed alcohol taxes in 2024.

In addition, the Kenya Revenue Authority links the drop to weak compliance and possible illicit trade in the alcohol industry, as nearly 10 million excise stamps went missing. For instance, Movendi International reported that the type of stamps, the timing of the loss, and details of any investigation remain undisclosed. This lack of transparency has sparked fears of widespread tax evasion in the alcohol industry and a surge in counterfeit alcohol products.

Clearly, the alcohol industry’s narrative seeks to distract from those three issues – that all look bad for them and that all require government action. And the alcohol industry deploys the narrative to undermine evidence-based alcohol policy action.

This case and its three core elements presents an opportunity to shape the public discourse and expose the flawed claims of the alcohol industry that are riddled by conflicts of interest:

The steep drop in excise tax revenue from beer illustrates the deeper problem of a poorly regulated alcohol industry that fails to contribute its fair share of taxes, especially considering the heavy burden of alcohol harm their products and practices are causing to Kenyans. It also reveals the self-interested claims by alcohol industry lobbyists when they pushed for lowering alcohol taxes and succeeded with the beer tax decrease. Thirdly, the alcohol industry is fueling illicit trade with their non-compliance with the Kenyan tax stamps.

These three points illustrate the government made a mistake in treating multinational beer giants preferentially when setting alcohol excise taxes as part of Kenya’s Finance Bill discussions.

The way to go for the Kenyan government – instead of following Big Alcohol’s siren songs that clearly lead to reduced tax revenue, while alcohol harm grows – is prioritising people’s health, community well-being, and societal progress through evidence-based alcohol taxation as recommended by the World Health Organization and the RESET Alcohol Initiative, including enhancing compliance systems,

“PAN Congressman Proposes Exemption From IEPS For Mezcal Producers”

Yo Deportivo reports:

“The initiative presented by the deputy proposes adding a paragraph to article 2-A of the IEPS Law, in order to exempt from this tax those producers who have an annual production of less than 80,000 litres. This exemption would only apply under certain conditions, such as compliance with the Official Mexican Norm NOM-070, which regulates the artisanal and ancestral production of mezcal. This norm seeks to guarantee that there are no abuses or simulations in the process, thus protecting true artisanal producers and preventing large industries from benefiting from the exemption without complying with the sector’s requirements. Mojica stresses that this proposal is not an idea born on a desk, but is the result of visits to communities where mezcal producers share their stories and struggles. ‘We listened to those who truly live from mezcal, to those who distil it with their hearts and not with technology. They asked us for help, and here is our answer,’ he said.”

Assessment

While Mexico’s overall fiscal performance is improving, with rising tax revenues and a reduced budget deficit, the decline in IEPS revenue – including from alcohol – stands out as a missed opportunity.

This decline is a clear signal that Mexico is still not harnessing the full potential of alcohol taxation as a tool to prevent and reduce harm and costs and at the same time improve public finances because there is still a budget deficit.

The World Bank has detailed the revenue generation potential of alcohol taxes and other health harming product taxes, calling them “an efficient revenue generating tool for governments due to their relative ease of introduction, ease of administration, and rapid revenue generation potential.”

For alcohol taxation advocates the public attention to the state of the public finances, the persisting challenges Mexico faces among some positive developments provides an opportunity to shape the information environment by outlining the benefits of raising alcohol taxes.

At the same time, calls to exempt artisanal mezcal producers from the IEPS are resurfacing. This is not new. This strategy is part of the alcohol industry strategy to pollute the discourse and distract from the benefits of raising alcohol taxes. Community groups and alcohol taxation advocates have raised concerns about previous proposals that seek to carve out exceptions for certain alcohol products.

But latest reports of similar initiatives renew concerns and reveal how persistent some decision makers are in doing the bidding for the alcohol industry, deploying “cultural” and “artisanal” or “craft” narrative frame to justify tax exemptions that undermine the effectiveness of public health policy.

In Mexico, opposing forces (people’s health and public finances versus private profit maximization) are trying to pull the public, media, and political discourse into opposing directions, with alcohol industry forces attempting to establish a dominant frame of alcohol taxation and alcohol production that distract from the serious and urgent public health, public safety, and public finances needs to raise alcohol excise taxes and make alcohol companies pay their fair share for the harm their products and practices are causing.

This state of Mexico’s public discourse points to the need for framing alcohol taxation as a matter of social justice and health promotion. Closing loopholes in the tax structure, improving the design of alcohol taxes, and ensure that all producers – regardless of scale or image – contribute to paying for the cost of alcohol harm is key for the country to tackle its challenges with sustainable solutions.

“PhilHealth should get share of sin tax revenues”

Manila Times reports:

“SEN. Pia Cayetano has expressed support for calls to uphold the mandatory allocation of sin tax revenues to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth). The reelected senator made the call following PhilHealth’s zero budget in the 2025 national appropriations.

“The Medical Action Group and Social Watch Philippines questioned this issue before the Supreme Court. They also sought the remittance of unaccounted shares dating back to 2019. They said that the government violated Republic Act 11346 by failing to allocate earmarked revenues from sin taxes for PhilHealth.

“The sin tax law is clear. A portion of revenues from tobacco and sugar sweetened beverages must go to PhilHealth to fund the delivery of health care services to the Filipino people,” Cayetano said on Monday.”

Assessment

The current debate in the Philippines over pro-health tax allocation highlights a key implementation issue. Under Republic Act 11346, revenues from alcohol and tobacco taxes are earmarked in part for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to support universal health care. However, PhilHealth received no allocation in the proposed 2025 national budget, prompting civil society groups to petition the Supreme Court and call for the release of unremitted funds dating back to 2019.

Senator Pia Cayetano – a long-time champion of pro-health taxes in the Senate – has reiterated that the law is clear and that earmarked revenues must be allocated as intended.

This case reflects a broader challenge: raising alcohol taxes is a proven public health policy to prevent and reduce harm and costs; but setting the excise tax rates is not the only challenge: reliable political commitment to allocating the revenue from alcohol taxes to health and social services that help address alcohol harms is another challenge. Even when laws earmark alcohol tax revenues for health, effective implementation and accountability are essential. And civil society monitoring is key, too.

The primary objective of raising alcohol and other pro-health taxes is to promote health, prevent avoidable deaths, and reduce costs to economy and society. Revenue generation is an important but secondary objective. The case in the Philippines highlights that public health goals in pro-health taxation need to be and remain front and centre.

The outcome of this case may have wider implications for how earmarking provisions are perceived and how they can be best designed to fulfil their purpose of preventing and reducing health harms.

Assessment

Both op-eds are authered by different people from the same organisation. It shows their effectiveness in media advocacy but also the challenge to find, agree, and disseminate common and coherent frames and avoid counter-productive framing.

The first op-ed is written by Kashifa Ancer, campaign manager for Rethink Your Drink, an alcohol harm reduction campaign by the DG Murray Trust, a RESET partner.

The op-ed is a values-driven critique of alcohol marketing in South Africa. It connects today’s targeted advertising to a long history of racialised exploitation, exposing how the alcohol industry continues to position their products as a symbol of aspiration for young black South Africans. The piece reframes alcohol harm as systemic and commercial, and calls for a collective rejection of the narratives that glamorise alcohol as a path to success.

The second opinion piece is written by David Harrison, a medical doctor and the chief executive officer at the DG Murray Trust, a public innovator based in Cape Town.

This op-ed highlights the scale of alcohol harm, especially among young men, and brings useful data into the public sphere. But its conclusion – calling for the industry’s social and economic benefits to be “optimised” – risks softening the urgency for effective public policy. It reinforces a framing that balances health against industry interests, rather than confronting the commercial drivers of harm.

Together, these pieces show there is media interest in the topic of alcohol harm and that public awareness of alcohol harm and the need for policy action is growing.

But they also illustrate the policy debate remains contested and that alcohol policy champions have more work to do to shape the public discourse coherently, with mutually reinforcing frames and avoiding counter-productive messages and framing.

As the country faces the massive alcohol harms and wrestles with the way forward, shaping the public discourse with values-driven narratives and evidence-based messages about the need for and the benefits of action is a great opportunity. Focusing in on proven, population-level measures: alcohol taxation and common sense limitations on marketing and availability will help steer the conversation towards health and development promotion.

Assessment

Euromonitor is not an independent and trust-worthy entity. They are paid the alcohol (and other health harming) industries to generate report that align with industry narratives and promote industry interests.

This snapshot of media reporting about the Euromonitor report and the event linked to it reveals a deliberate push by the alcohol industry to distract from South Africa’s alcohol burden and focus on the part of the problem that benefits their profit maximization agenda.

This clear media push around the Drinks Federation of South Africa’s illicit alcohol report continues a coordinated effort to shape the national policy conversation. The DF-SA is Big Alcohol’s front group: AB InBev, Diageo, Heineken, and Pernod Ricard are all “founders” and funders.

As noted in the last Weekly Media Snapshot, this alcohol industry-funded study frames illicit trade as a reason for closer government–industry collaboration (just as in Uganda and Kenya in recent months), while avoiding any meaningful discussion of how alcohol industry practices contribute to the broader burden of alcohol harm.

The figures in the report are not trustworthy because of the inherent conflict of interest at play. And overall, the alcohol industry has zero credibility regarding claims about alcohol tax revenue losses. They oppose alcohol excise tax increases. And they devise schemes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes in South Africa and other countries – as ActionAid exposed already in 2010.

Clearly, the alcohol industry framing is flawed but they are committing aggressively to propagating this narrative, in South Africa and other countries in the region.

But there are powerful counter-narratives available: exposing the exploitative practices of the alcohol industry, including tax avoidance of the companies behind the DF-SA front group; illustrating the irreconcilable conflict of interest; highlighting other (African) countries that raised alcohol excise taxes with success and without unintended consequences; and discussing the multiple benefits of raising alcohol taxes, the quadruple win, in appealing ways for the broader public as well as political decision-makers.

Assessment

Vietnam’s approval of a phased increase in alcohol taxes marks a major public policy success for the country and a milestone advocacy win for civil society and partners, showing that local advocacy and strategic community mobilization with international advocacy and technical support can succeed even in the face of severe alcohol industry opposition.

The alcohol tax increase comes after aggressive alcohol industry lobbying over a three year period. Movendi International has created an overview of the alcohol tax reform at one glance and details alcohol industry lobbying against it, here.

The decision to raise alcohol taxes comes as new data reveals the scale and severity of the alcohol burden in Viet Nam. The finance ministry has said the aim of the alcohol tax increase was to curb alcohol consumption, harm, and costs, as per VN Express reporting.

This long-term commitment reflects growing political will to address alcohol harm through fiscal measures. It comes on the heel of the adoption of an alcohol law in 2019.

However, the final framework is less ambitious than earlier drafts, which proposed reaching 100% by 2030, clearly indicating that industry lobbying did water down and worsen the final alcohol tax reform. This matters because the alcohol industry will use any opportunity to lobby against the alcohol tax increases in the coming years. This means that continuous work to shape the public discourse is and remains crucial to increase recognition of the real extent of alcohol harm and the benefits of alcohol taxation.

Nevertheless, the approved plan represents one of the most significant alcohol tax reforms in the region and shows that sustained advocacy can lead to compelling policy gains, even in the face of massive alcohol industry lobbying.