Nosam publishes news and information on alcohol policy and alcohol marketing in the Nordic countries. The pages cover news as well as more static background infomation concerning the Nordic countries’ alcohol policy systems, for example facts about state policies in different countries. Nosam links to different organisations and institutions that deal 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 that in their profession need to be kept up-to-date with the state of matters in the alcohol field. The site can also be an useful acquaintance for anybody 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 back 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 other related themes as well.
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 were 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, originally created by Dag Rekve.
NAD and Nosam
In the spring of 2005 the Nordic Council for Alcohol- and Drug Research (NAD) took over the Nosam-site.
Nosam continues to inform about the marketing of alcohol and it 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 a login and a 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 the page 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 over 15 000 in December 2006!
Matilda Hellman works as the project coordinator and Linda Grönqvist as the editor of Nosam.
Contact: linda.gronqvist@nad.fi or matilda.hellman@nad.fi
