Italy is to fight a rise in teen drinking by banning advertisements that link alcohol to making friends or attracting members of the opposite sex.
Unveiling an alcohol prevention campaign here, Welfare Minister Paolo Ferrero said the government intends to explode the myth that drinking makes people more attractive.
"The aim is to break the link that exists in young people's minds between the use of substances and the ability to construct significant and successful relationships in social groups," he said.
Ferrero said the government would also slap health warnings on beer, wine and spirits.
The new labels would be stuck on all drinks with an alcohol content of more than 1.2%.
Ferrero said the ad ban would apply to the TV and publications read by teenagers.
Beer, wine and spirit producers will only be allowed to run ads "showing the characteristics of their products," Ferrero said.
"The idea is to restrict alcohol advertising to pure information," he said.
Government medical officials said family doctors and companies would be enlisted in the campaign.
"GPs should be allowed to give prescriptions to fight alcohol abuse and companies could become a big ally by banning alcohol from canteens," said the head of the health ministry's prevention department, Donato Greco.
The government's move was unveiled on Italy's First Alcohol Prevention Day.
A survey was released showing that two thirds of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15 drink on Saturday nights and a fifth of them get drunk - figures that would have been unthinkable as recently as a few years ago because of an Italian social taboo on public drunkenness.
More than 80% of teens between the ages of 16 and 18 drink on Saturday night and many of them are binge-drinkers.
Drinking by teens and young adults has been "rising sharply" in the past few years, the Higher Health Institute said.
A tenth of deaths between the ages of 13 and 24 is attributable to alcohol, many of them because of widespread post-disco drunk-driving, first noted some 20 years ago, that has produced the media tag Saturday Night Massacre.
According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, alcohol kills round 25,000 Italians a year - compared to 115,000 in the rest of Europe put together.
Worldwide, alcohol is responsible for 35 deaths per 100,000 for men and 8.4 for women.
