“Friends don’t let friends drink light beer”

“Friends don’t let friends drive drunk” is a popular service announcement that was started by the Ad Council and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (under the U.S. Department of Transportation - U.S. DOT). The beginning of the message—“Friends don’t let friends…”—has been much-imitated.
 
Many beer drinkers don’t like light beer and tell jokes about the product that they consider to be inferior. “Friends don’t let friends drink light beer” has been cited in print since at least 1997 amd is included in many collections of sayings about alcohol.
 
   
Ad Council
Drunk Driving Prevention (1983-Present)
Sponsor: U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Volunteer Agency: DDB Worldwide, New York
In 1983 the Ad Council and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (under the U.S. Department of Transportation - U.S. DOT) partnered to launch the Drunk Driving Prevention campaign. Although society’s permissive attitude toward drinking and driving had recently begun to shift, many Americans were still unaware of the magnitude of the problem. At the time drunk drivers were responsible for 50% of automobile fatalities and experts predicted that one out of every two Americans would be involved in an alcohol-related traffic accident in his or her lifetime.
 
The campaign, with its tagline, “Drinking & Driving Can Kill A Friendship,” was originally designed to reach 16-24 year-olds, who accounted for 42% of all fatal alcohol-related car crashes, and inspire personal responsibility to prevent drinking and driving. The public service advertisement (PSA), which emphasized the grave consequences of drinking and driving with a depiction of two glasses crashing into each other, won the 1984 classic CLIO award for best overall ad campaign - commercial or public service. To date, it is one of only a handful of PSAs to have been so honored since 1947.
 
As the years passed, statistics showed that the issue of drunk driving was approaching the forefront of American consciousness. According to an April 1986 Roper poll, 62% of young Americans reported that they were now more conscious of the dangers of drunk driving than they had been previously and 34% refused to drink at all when they were planning to drive. Additionally, the U.S. DOT reported a 25% decrease in the number of drunk drivers killed in traffic accidents between 1980 and 1990.
 
In 1990, new PSAs encouraging friends to intervene in order to prevent a drunk person from getting behind the wheel introduced the tagline, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk.” This hard-hitting campaign was instrumental in achieving a 10% decrease in alcohol-related fatalities between 1990 and 1991 - the single largest one-year drop in alcohol-related fatalities ever recorded. The tagline went on to become the most recognized anti-drinking and driving slogan in America. Beginning in 1994, the PSAs poignantly illustrated the consequences of letting someone drink and drive by featuring the stories, photographs and home videos of real people who were killed by drunk drivers. 
 
Angelfire.com—Beer
Beer Quotes
Last revised: 11:21 PM Nov. 15, 1997
(...)
Friends don’t let friends drink light beer.
   
Gamer.nl
Mani
13th March 2001, 19:41
(...)
Friends don’t let friends drink Light Beer.
   
IGN
legacyAccount
Date Posted: Jun 1, 2001 #1209
Friends don’t let friends drink Light Beer.
   
Google Books
The Beer Devotional:
A Daily Celebration of the World’s Most Inspiring Beers
By Jess Lebow
Avon, MA: Adams Media
2010
Pg. 247:
“Friends don’t let friends drink light beer.” —Anonymous
 
Twitter
RexxleoVlog
‏@RexxleoVlog
Friends don’t let friends drink Light Beer   http://bit.ly/KWzGSO
5:00 PM - 14 May 12
   
Beer Advocate
Friends don’t let friends drink light beer
Discusion in ‘Beer Talk’ started by Uniobrew31, Apr 6, 2013.
I bought a case of Amstel (the distributor initially sold me a case of Sam Adams light which was three months out of date) but that’s another thread!