The country that demands of its residents: "drink as much alcohol as possible" | Israel today

More than once, or in fact too many times, we have heard of a campaign aimed at reducing, curtailing or even stopping the consumption of alcohol among young people (or teenagers of legal age).

The importance of these campaigns is well known and there is no need to elaborate.

Despite this, there are countries that choose to do the exact opposite and actually call their youth to consume alcohol, and quite a bit of it.

Since the outbreak of the corona virus, bars, restaurants and other places of entertainment and businesses that used to have high turnovers, according to the reports, suffered a severe damage to their income from the sale of alcohol, which led to a sharp decrease in the income from the taxes on those alcoholic beverages.

A unique initiative on behalf of the government and under the auspices of the country's tax authorities is trying to improve the situation through a competition to increase alcohol consumption among young people who, it turns out, drink much less than their parents' generation.

As part of the competition, a campaign named Sake Viva (named after the famous official national alcoholic beverage) was launched and supervised as mentioned by the National Tax Authority in the country, inviting the participants (young people between the ages of 20 and 39) to propose creative ideas to encourage the consumption of alcoholic beverages among young people, through the use of In various sales techniques, services, sales promotions and even artificial intelligence and the metaverse worlds.

A bar in Tokyo, photo: Getty Images

"Domestic consumption of alcoholic beverages is falling due to demographic changes such as a decrease in the birth rate and the aging of the population, as well as changes in lifestyle resulting from the damage caused by the corona epidemic," reads the official website of the competition, in which it was emphasized that it is aimed at the young population in the country and is intended to revive the industry.

As part of the open competition until September 9, participants are invited to propose ideas for all types of alcohol in Japan, with those who reach the final stages being invited to a professional advisory committee in October before the official finals to be held in Tokyo in November when the winner will receive support to make their idea commercial.

The reactions to the unique move, in case you were wondering, were divided as some of the public criticized the move for encouraging the unhealthy habit of alcohol consumption by official state officials.

"Are you kidding me?"

One commenter wrote angrily and added: "Staying away from alcohol is a good thing!".

The Japanese Ministry of Health previously warned of the dangers inherent in increased alcohol consumption.

A post published on the ministry's official website last year stated that excessive alcohol consumption is a severe and persistent social problem that is difficult to eradicate despite a decrease in consumption, and he urged people with unhealthy drinking habits to reexamine their relationship with alcohol.

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