T liquor ads won't drive kids to drink

April 30, 2004

Why not ban liquor ads from the MBTA?

That's Jerry McDermott's idea. The well-intentioned city councilor from Boston's Allston-Brighton section worries about binge drinking and the culture of overconsumption. He watches as gigantic liquor ads plastered over public transit buses and trolleys cruise through Boston's college neighborhoods and, in the wake of rioting by Northeastern students following the Super Bowl, wonders why a government agency promotes such irresponsibility.

It's easy to sympathize, yet I am wary. Not to sound too dramatic about it, but this is about more than drinking: McDermott's campaign ultimately engages issues of the First Amendment, free speech and even our most basic notions of individual free will.

Whew. But before we get to heavy topics such as those, an aperitif.

The T has gotten into advertising in a big way and for a very obvious reason: it needs the money. It started with small posters in stations and subway cars. Then, in 1995, the T hit on a new scheme: shrink-wrapping an entire bus or trolley car, thereby converting the whole thing into a moving billboard.

The T's fascination with advertising is part of a more widespread phenomenon. Anyone with available, visible space has figured out that they've got a commodity to sell. Been to Fenway Park recently? The Green Monster looks increasingly like the Ad Ogre. Commercials cover bus stops, public toilets and maps throughout the city. It's what Jane Holtz Kay calls the "spamming of Boston" and, whether it's an ad for a toaster or for getting toasted, it's hardly a pretty thing.

In the 1960s, Lady Bird Johnson led a movement for the "Beautification of America." Forty years later, it's clear she lost. The ubiquity of loud and insistent advertisements has made our public spaces increasingly coarse and ugly.

But that isn't McDermott's present concern. For the moment, he's not arguing the T abandon shrink-wrapping; indeed, in conversation he clearly recognizes that the agency now depends on that advertising revenue. Rather, he objects to the content of the ads. And this is where the First Amendment comes in. McDermott, remember, is a government official. In that capacity, he's trying to say that some kinds of speech shouldn't be allowed.

In some respects, he stands on firm ground. Federal court decisions have made it clear that commercial speech - such as advertising - has less First Amendment protection than does other, non-commercial speech. That distinction has been the underpinning for a variety of government regulations, including requirements about the truth (or falsity) of an ad. The same distinction allowed the government largely to suppress cigarette advertising (while at the same time, for instance, being unable to stop a pro-Nazi speech).

Moreover, it's not as if the MBTA has clean hands on this issue. In fact, several years ago the T tried to ban advertising on topics (such as AIDS or marijuana legalization) that clearly were protected by the First Amendment. The reason the T now allows alcohol advertising is not because of some principled commitment to the free discourse of ideas but rather, I expect, because alcohol advertisers are an easy source of money.

In addition, there's the issue of children. One can imagine that McDermott might credibly oppose the alcohol ads because children might exposed to them. That's not his argument, however. Rather, he objects because the ads target college students - clearly adults by society's definition. The ads irresistibly "glorify" and "push" alcohol, he says. Or, as one 21-year-old student told The Boston Globe, "You see (the ads on) those trains (and) of course you want a drink."

This, really, is the nub of the debate. How does advertising work? Does it provide us with information about alternatives, from which we make choices? Or is it so persuasive that it becomes compelling? Are human beings like Pavlov's dog, unable to stop salivating at the siren song of an ad?

Implicit to McDermott's case is a belief that adults (or, to narrow this to his focus, young adults) don't have sufficient critical faculties to make their own decisions. We don't tell ourselves what to do, runs the argument. Rather, advertisements tell us how to think, feel and behave. If that's right then, by all means, ban the T's ads.

But before we do, consider how far this goes.

The premise of a democracy is that individuals have free will. We choose our politicians, our careers, our religions, our spouses and even the foods we eat. Even when we disagree with the choices others make, even when we think those decisions are mistaken or outright harmful, as a free society we let individuals make those choices and then live with their consequences.

If that's not true, however, if young adults (or older adults, for that matter) are incapable even of resisting a simple message on a passing bus, then ask yourself this: Should we even allow them to vote?

Talk back to Tom Keane at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.