Profits and fears in drinking boom

With more and more people around the world drinking more and more alcohol, the huge multinational drinks companies are expanding, seeking fresh markets - and the target is the developing world.

In countries like Kenya, alcohol is being sold as part of a lifestyle - new and fashionable in places were once it was a dark secret.

In a bar in the capital Nairobi, a crowd of young people knocking back their drinks seem not dissimilar to a crowd in Manchester or anywhere else.

"I'm drinking Eraser - it erases memory," says one drinker.

"Tomorrow, I won't remember what happened - I won't remember this interview. So you'd better send me tape."

Binge drinking

These people are fashionably dressed, and part of a new elite.

They drink the premium alcohol brands as part of a Western lifestyle these young Africans now enjoy.

"I think we have evolved from our parents, from the Africa where young people could not go to places if they were not of a certain age," another drinker explained.

"Nowadays, as long as you work, you're over 18 and you're responsible, you can go wherever you want.

"It's basically your responsibility."

However, campaigner David Ogot - a recovering alcoholic who knows at first hand about alcohol and addiction - tells BBC World Service's Alcohol programme that attitudes towards drinking had transformed in recent years - just as they have in the UK, where there has been a massive increase in so-called "binge drinking."

"In my time, when we drank, we drank to have fun - we frowned upon this falling-down kind of drunk," says Mr Ogot.

"But today, if you didn't drink and puke and fight and then black out at the end, then you didn't have fun.

"That's the way they're drinking... that's the deal nowadays. Drinking to get drunk."

Kenya Breweries - a highly profitable company on the outskirts of Nairobi, and home of some of the country's best-known brands - stresses that it does not want people binge drinking, or even getting drunk.

Controlled by British-based Diageo, the world's biggest drinks company, Kenya Breweries argues that it is proud of what it does

"At the end of the day, there is one realisation that we need to appreciate - that alcohol, taken in the right quantities and with the right people, is actually very good and very positive for society," says director of external affairs Ken Karuki.

"Unfortunately, that is one element that not many people are very comfortable to repeat.

"We know for a fact that alcohol is positive if used in the right way - when you think about it, alcohol has been in the world since Biblical times.

"Therefore, we are very proud of the role that we play in society, in getting people to come together, to meet, to socialise."

Campaign

Mr Karuki says he feels the negative part of drinking is being "amplified" and denies accusations that the company's marketing - including a competition to win a house by finding a lucky bottle top - encourages people to drink too much.

"The promotion was designed to reward consumers who have been loyal to the brand," he says.

"We did not encourage excessive consumption of alcohol."

James Kaghuti, appointed by the Kenyan president to head the National Agency For the Campaign Against Drug Abuse - and whose brief includes alcohol - is furious with the campaign.

"You are not advertising milk or chocolate, you are advertising substances of addiction," he says.

Drinks companies are cynically targeting Kenya's young people, he insists, pointing to how his surveys show alcohol abuse by young Kenyans is increasing massively.

"Last year, by volume, we increased drinking by 16%. It's phenomenal.

"Imagine that happening in the UK. It is down to excessive promotion, and it's very sad."

For some, this is an indication of how the global alcohol industry is now under attack, as the tobacco industry has been for decades.

For these multi-billion dollar multinational companies, this is a key moment.

And Kenya Breweries' head of external affairs Ken Karuki has the company's defence ready.

"We have run a very extensive responsible drinking programme, and in that programme we give consumers the do's and don'ts of responsible drinking," he says.

"We encourage them to consume responsibly. We do not advocate for consumers to go over the limit, we do not advocate them to drink excessively, we do not advocate them to drink and drive.

"We have clearly laid that out."

BBC World Service in Nairobi