Nosam

Nosam publishes news and information on alcohol policy and alcohol marketing in the Nordic countries. The page covers news as well as more static background infomation about the Nordic countries’ alcohol policy systems, for example facts about state policies in different countries. Nosam links to different organisations and institutions that work with alcohol policy matters. Nosam serves an important purpose by its numerous links to other sources of information; documents, press releases, institutions, legal acts...etc. Further information is always available just a “click” away from the main page.

Nosam is continuously used by persons in the Nordic countries that in their profession want to be kept up-to-date with the state of matters in the alcohol field. The site can also be an useful acquaintance for anyone looking for information on the Internet regarding this specific field.

Nosam covers e.g. the following subjects: alcohol policy, alcohol advertisment, marketing of alcohol, social science research on alcohol, trends in alcohol consumption, media debate dealing with alcohol marketing and alcohol policy issues, actions targeted at regulating alcohol consumption, legislation that directly or indirectly concerns alcohol advertisement and alcohol policy etc.

History and background

Nosam was originally created for watching over and registrating marketing of alcohol in the Nordic countries.

Already in 1999 The Nordic Council of Ministers discussed the alcohol beverage producers’ sponsoring of sports. During the Norwegian presidency in 2002 a systematic way of watching over marketing of alcohol was proposed. At the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services an initiative was raised about cooperation across sectors to involve different actors for developing a project that was to include also other related themes.

The project resulted in an internet page, that was set up in December 2003 on the address www.nosam.net. The idea was to develope the webpage further, so that it could be used as a portal that covered more or less every aspect of the field of alcohol marketing and alcohol advertisement. Different ads was to be registered in the Nosam data base and could be viewed in the page’s gallery. The page would also work as a link to relevant information about everything from legislation to international trade agreements. As to the year of 2005 Nosam was a project runned by the Norwegian Socialdepartementet.

NAD and Nosam

In the spring of 2005 the Nordic Council for Alcohol- and Drug Research (NAD) started to run the Nosam-site.

Nosam still informs about the marketing of alcohol and follows up current alcohol advertisement cases, but the focus has been broaden to include Nordic alcohol policy in general. The range of users has also expanded: until 2005 Nosam was only available for a limited group of persons with login and password. Since August 2005 the webpages are open for the general public on the internet. Due to copyright legislation it is not possible to keep up an advertisment gallery, but Nosam has a gallery, which links to ads on the web. The advertisements are shortly reviewed and discussed at the pages.

Nosam strives at being a broad, useful and up-to-date channel for information on Nordic alcohol policy and alcohol marketing.

The references for Nosam has increased from 2133 for January 2006 to 9617 for July 2006.

Contact: matilda.hellman@nad.fi