A chara – I very much welcome Diageo’s decision to end its sponsorship of a sporting organisation (“Diageo cancels sponsorship of London Irish”, News, June 13th).
Diageo is very likely aware of the damning relationship between alcohol and crime. For example, on the very informative alcoholireland.ie website, alcohol has been identified as a contributory factor in 97 per cent of all public-order offences recorded on the Garda Pulse system.
Considering that three people die every day in Ireland and 1,500 hospital beds are occupied every night as a result of alcohol use, I have “serious concerns” that alcohol companies, whose products cause so much pain and suffering in every home in Ireland, are allowed to sponsor sporting organisations, as this is “not consistent with the values” of a modern society. – Yours, etc,
GARETH T CLIFFORD,
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Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – I read recently that a group of scientific experts in the field of drugs ranked 20 legal and illegal mood-altering substances on the basis of the harm they do to users and others. They looked at 16 categories, such as addictiveness, lethality and propensity to incite violence. Alcohol came top and tobacco came sixth. Ketamine, ecstasy and LSD came 11th, 15th and 18th respectively.
That the most dangerous drug in our society is also the most commonly used tells us much.
Diageo has a nerve when it climbs onto the high moral ground and says its brand does not fit with the image London Irish now portrays.
Perhaps they could “take the beam out of their own eye” before casting aspersions on another organisation.
Double standards, I would have thought. – Yours, etc,
IAIN
KENNEDY,
Enniskillen,
Co Fermanagh.