Anheuser-Busch should drop its sponsorship of a Washington, D.C. charity event called the “Idiotarod,” organized by a local group that goes by the acronym “SMASHED,” according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The March 3 event, in which young people are urged to acquire shopping carts and drink beer in one bar after another, is in clear violation of the Beer Institute’s Advertising and Marketing Code, which prohibits marketing which encourages rapid or excessive beer drinking or drinking games, according to the group.
“Prepare your liver,” the SMASHED organizers say on their web site. “We know there’s going to be a lot of drinking and in some places we might even encourage it.” As for the shopping carts the participants are urged to acquire, the organizers “don’t want to know how or from where” they come. The event, which is cosponsored by Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light brand, starts at a bar called the Front Page in Washington’s Dupont Circle neighborhood on Saturday.