Vic: Row over vodka-flavoured ice-cream

AAP General News (Australia)
04-03-2004
Vic: Row over vodka-flavoured ice-cream

MELBOURNE, April 3 AAP - A new vodka-flavoured ice-cream on sale in Victoria will introduce
children to the tastes of alcohol at too young an age, anti-drug campaigners said today.

Streets say their "Illicit Vodka Cranberry Magnum" contains no alcohol and is designed
for adults.

But the director of the Community Alcohol Action Network, Geoff Munro, said ice-cream
was a "quintessential" children's product and Streets were ignoring the huge problems
Australians had with alcohol.

"It introduces children to the taste of alcohol at potentially a very early age and
I think that should be avoided," he said.

Mr Munro said the description of the ice-cream as naughty and illicit would reinforce
the perception among young people that alcohol was forbidden and exciting.

The new ice-cream continued a trend for extension of alcohol flavours into foods, he said.

"These products normalise alcohol and suggest to people that they ought to be thinking
about alcohol just about every hour of the day," he said.

The opposition to the new ice-cream mirrors the row over the appearance of alcoholic
biscuits earlier this year.

Arnott's introduction of the new Tim Tam Tia Maria and Kahlua slice biscuits in February
drew a rebuke from federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham who said alcohol flavoured products
targeted at children were a bad idea.

Arnotts said the biscuits were not targeted at children, but at women aged between 20 and 45.

AAP apw/sjbX

KEYWORD: VODKA

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