[1] The organisation is governed by a board of Australians with diverse professional backgrounds[2] including policing, public health, education, community service, academia, research and marketing.
Launched in June 2008, the Kids Absorb Your Drinking campaign was created to raise awareness of the importance of role-modeling behaviour of parents about their consumption of alcohol.
In a 2008 media release, DrinkWise cites research that supports the view that there is a strong positive correlation between the way parents drink and how their children grow up to drink..[4] In 2010 the Kids and Alcohol Don’t Mix campaign informed parents on emerging clinical research undertaken by Professor Ian Hickie at the Sydney University Mind and Brain Institute that indicated that alcohol can cause damage to the developing adolescent brain.
[5] In 2014, DrinkWise Australia launched an Australian first campaign designed to influence young adults (18–24 years) to moderate the intensity and frequency of binge drinking occasions.
[17] In 2009 fifty-eight scientists and health professionals expressed their opposition to DrinkWise by signing a letter stating that they will not seek or accept funding from them, and called on other researchers and community agencies to consider their own positions.