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Cancer warnings on alcohol labels, evaluated as a natural experiment

Most people do not know alcohol causes seven cancers. Ireland is putting cancer warnings on bottles; other countries should follow and measure the effect on drinking.

Ireland's Public Health (Alcohol) Act mandates cancer warnings on labels, and the Yukon labelling experiment reduced sales. Propose EU-wide adoption with staggered timing enabling difference-in-differences evaluation of awareness and per-capita consumption.

Hypothesis
Cancer warnings increase awareness of the alcohol-cancer link by at least 20 percentage points and reduce per-capita consumption by at least 3% within three years.
Rationale
Tobacco labelling precedent, low cost, and industry opposition consistent with expected effect.
What would test it
Run a pre-registered evaluation across adopting and non-adopting EU states.
Maturity
being tested at scale
Who has to act
policy
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
3
Bottlenecks it attacks

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