(CNN) — They won’t get you buzzed, but some experts say low-alcohol and alcohol-free beers and mocktails shouldn’t be sold to minors, and they’re calling for laws that curb underage sales to kids and teens.
The market for nonalcoholic drinks has been growing as more people — notably younger adults — look to cut their alcohol use. In order to be considered nonalcoholic, these drinks have to contain less than 0.5% alcohol by volume.
The sober-curious movement has given rise to ready-to-go drinks in cans and bottles that often look just like their boozy counterparts. There’s a version of Budweiser beer called Budweiser Zero, for example, and a nonalcoholic version of Corona beer in the same signature longneck bottles.
“It’s a way to blend in for a lot of folks who are using these in social settings,” said Dr. Molly Bowdring, an instructor in the Stanford Prevention Research Center.
But the products may offer an entry point into drinking culture that some experts are worried could foster unhealthy habits.
Actress Kristen Bell ruffled some feathers last year when she said on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show that she lets her young daughters drink their dad’s nonalcoholic beer at home.
“They’re unlikely to lead to intoxication, but they contain many of the same cues as alcohol – so flavor, look, smell, experience of sipping and sometimes even the same brand as alcoholic beverages,” said Bowdring, who recently published a commentary on the issue in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
If nobody’s getting tipsy, what’s the harm? Bowdring says there’s emerging evidence that nonalcoholic beverages may prime kids to switch to the real thing.
The research that’s raising eyebrows comes from Japan, Taiwan and Australia.
Surveys of elementary, middle and high school students in Japan, where the legal drinking age is 20, found that 20% to 30% said they were drinking nonalcoholic beverages. Additional studies in Japan found that elementary school students who said they drank nonalcoholic drinks were more interested in drinking alcohol than those who said they didn’t have these kinds of beverages.
Nonalcoholic beverage use in junior high and high school was linked to the likelihood that a person had had alcohol in the previous 30 days.
In Taiwan, where the legal drinking age is 18, high schoolers who said they drank nonalcoholic beverages were more likely than those who didn’t to express an intention to drink alcohol.
In Australia, where the legal drinking age is 18, researchers conducted focus groups and surveyed teens ages 15 to 17 about the use of what they called zero-alcohol beverages. They found that more than a third had tried zero-alcohol drinks, and more than 1 in 5 were drinking them at least monthly. In the survey, teens who said they had tried zero-alcohol drinks were 2.5 times more likely to have also drunk alcohol compared with those who’d never had them.
Dr. Leon Booth, a research policy fellow at the George Institute for Global Health in New South Wales, Australia, said teens appear to be drinking these for a mix of reasons. Some were just curious about new products and tried them but didn’t drink them frequently. Others, though, said they had used zero-alcohol drinks to fit in with older friends who were drinking.
“They are effectively role-playing drinking when they choose a zero-alcohol version of an alcoholic product, instead of a regular soft drink or something else obviously not alcoholic,” Booth wrote in an email.
“In the focus group discussions, a few teens mentioned they had gotten used to the taste of beer by drinking zero alcohol versions, which suggests that zero alcohol beverages can acclimatise young people to the taste of alcoholic beer,” he added.
The Distilled Spirits Council, a group that represents manufacturers of alcoholic drinks, said its members agree that nonalcoholic beverages that are made to look like the real thing shouldn’t be consumed by kids and teens.
“Non-alcohol beverages using alcohol branding are made for adult consumption and many alcohol producers have committed to voluntarily print age restrictions on alcohol-free extensions of alcohol brands,” Lisa Hawkins, a spokesperson for the council, wrote in an email. The group says it has no position on state-mandated age restrictions.
A spokesperson for Budweiser echoed that sentiment.
“Anheuser-Busch has a longstanding commitment to responsible drinking: all of our beers and non-alcohol beers are marketed to and intended for adults 21 years of age and older, and we operate in strict compliance with the Beer Institute’s Advertising & Marketing Code,” they said in a statement.
Constellation Brands, which markets Corona beverages, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Bowdring says there’s little research on how often kids in the US may be drinking these, although she’s working on a survey now. She also contacted officiais in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to see whether they regulate the sale of nonalcoholic beverages. It turns out most don’t.
Twelve states limit the sale of nonalcoholic beverages to minors to some degree, Bowdring said, but her research suggests that most of these regulations were sort of accidental more than intentional.
“My read of the situation, having talked to a lot of folks, is that there weren’t specific laws or policies written in for nonalcoholic beverages, but rather their definition of alcohol simply encompassed nonalcoholic beverages,” she said.
Georgia and Idaho don’t sell nonalcoholic drinks to minors because they regulate based on the way a beverage is made, rather than by how much alcohol it contains. If it’s brewed like beer, it’s beer.
Florida and Kansas have a stricter definition than federal regulators. These states count any drink as alcoholic if it has any measurable amount of alcohol. So minors in those states can buy nonalcoholic drinks but not those with low levels of alcohol.
Overall, Bowdring said, there’s a limited and concerning lack of restrictions on the sale of this category of beverages, given their potential association with alcohol use.
Nonalcoholic beverages may be good for adults who are trying to kick the habit or cut back on how much they drink, she said, but kids are a different story.
For minors, there’s no benefit in consuming nonalcoholic drinks, and there is some evidence of potential harm, she said — which is why she thinks states need to step in to curb sales.
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