Latvian coin featuring beer mug 'amounts to hidden alcohol advertising
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Latvian coin featuring beer mug 'amounts to hidden alcohol advertising
The silver coloured one Lat coin (which is worth about £1.30) was released earlier this month to mark the Baltic country's midsummer solstice festival where beer drinking looms large.
But the former Soviet republic's health ministry took exception to the new coin, writing an angry letter to the Bank of Latvia alleging that releasing one million coins with a frothy stein of beer on one side amounted to illegal alcohol advertising.
"The coin contradicts our efforts to cut down on the consumption of alcohol in society," the health ministry complained. It seems that the Bank of Latvia's press release accompanying the issue of the new coin caught the health ministry's eye too. It waxed lyrical about beer's positive qualities, noting that it was a well known cure against insomnia and had been used in the past for semi-medical purposes.
"After water and tea, beer is the third most popular beverage in the world," the Bank of Latvia enthused. "The builders of the Egyptian pyramids were given three vessels of beer a day."
A spokesman for the bank dismissed the health ministry's criticism as "not serious" however. "We might as well ban national traditions and the midsummer solstice itself (according to their logic)," he said.
Strongly denying that it amounted to hidden alcohol advertising, he said the health ministry's criticism had only increased interest in the new coin and that Latvians were queuing up outside the bank's branches to get hold of one.
In the throes of an anti-alcohol campaign, the health ministry also wrote to a school which tested final year pupils on the history of Scotch whisky as part of an oral exam this year, complaining that the topic was "unacceptable."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/latvia/8591994/Latvian-coin-featuring-beer-mug-amounts-to-hidden-alcohol-advertising.html
But the former Soviet republic's health ministry took exception to the new coin, writing an angry letter to the Bank of Latvia alleging that releasing one million coins with a frothy stein of beer on one side amounted to illegal alcohol advertising.
"The coin contradicts our efforts to cut down on the consumption of alcohol in society," the health ministry complained. It seems that the Bank of Latvia's press release accompanying the issue of the new coin caught the health ministry's eye too. It waxed lyrical about beer's positive qualities, noting that it was a well known cure against insomnia and had been used in the past for semi-medical purposes.
"After water and tea, beer is the third most popular beverage in the world," the Bank of Latvia enthused. "The builders of the Egyptian pyramids were given three vessels of beer a day."
A spokesman for the bank dismissed the health ministry's criticism as "not serious" however. "We might as well ban national traditions and the midsummer solstice itself (according to their logic)," he said.
Strongly denying that it amounted to hidden alcohol advertising, he said the health ministry's criticism had only increased interest in the new coin and that Latvians were queuing up outside the bank's branches to get hold of one.
In the throes of an anti-alcohol campaign, the health ministry also wrote to a school which tested final year pupils on the history of Scotch whisky as part of an oral exam this year, complaining that the topic was "unacceptable."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/latvia/8591994/Latvian-coin-featuring-beer-mug-amounts-to-hidden-alcohol-advertising.html
AvSro :: World News
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