The ban is being pondered for good reasons. More than 16 million Thais, or about 33 per cent of the total population, consume alcoholic drinks regularly. Consumption has tripled in the last 14 years, with beer drinking making an eight-fold increase over that period. About 21 per cent of Thai male teenagers - about a million - are consuming alcohol regularly, while the number of teenage female drinkers has increased six-fold over the last seven years. Undoubtedly, these increases must in part have been caused by ads, which depict drinking as sexy, fun, classy and virtually harmless.

Alcohol producers have said it is difficult for them to remove banners and signs at more than 100,000 restaurants and pubs. It is also difficult for retail and entertainment outlets to comply with the new regulations. Due to the uncertainty, the Singha Corporation, manufacturer of Singha and Leo beers, has decided not to remove its banners from the front of the CentralWorld complex and the KPN building on Rama IX Road. The company has demanded fair treatment from both the Public Health Ministry and the Food and Drug Administration. Some major sport events are said to be in limbo now.

A legal "mess" exists to defy the government's determination. What constitutes an "ad" alone is a big headache. The wrong measures could set off endless legal wars. The principles of liberal trade will also be questioned. And what if alcohol becomes much cheaper because the liquor companies save billions of baht in both direct and "below-the-line" advertising?

The media will be seriously affected. Recently, Viviane Reading, European commissioner for Information Society and Media, revealed that the European Commission was against new restrictions on advertising that could affect freedom of the press and its economic basis. Reading considers that "freedom of the press and a solid economic basis are essential for enabling daily newspapers and magazines to prosper". The statement was meant to reassure the European media amid the efforts of "strong pressure groups" to seek tough restrictions on advertising, mainly for alcoholic beverages, similar to those applied to tobacco.

There is also the question of whether the disappearance of whisky or beer bottles from TV screens or billboards or newspapers will really reduce consumption, or alcohol abuse. If big brand names become cheaper because producers are spared advertising and probably sports sponsorship costs, will it encourage greater consumption? Another argument - coming from big liquor firms, of course - is that cheap, strong and more harmful products can penetrate the "unnatural" or "imbalanced" market because consumers will have less information about their choices.

Advocates of the ban insist that producers will worry about their consumers' health later: ban the ads, as they did on cigarettes, and see what happens. As for the concern that sports sponsorship will take a big plunge, the proponents of the ban are adamant that life will go on. In other words, new advertising players will eventually fill the void. Regarding the argument that teenagers or young people start drinking because of peer influence or the abundant examples of adults drinking, rather than ads, the campaigners also say: wait and see. After all, how many times have you opened your fridge right after seeing a young, beautiful couple on TV holding icy bottles of beer while they sit in front of the TV?

It will be a tough call. But the government must take all the pros and cons into account, including alternative measures like mandatory social responsibility budgets at the liquor firms. People have the right to choose, but at the same time they have the right to be protected and informed by their government when it comes to health hazards.