7-Up Stands Accused in Prison Row, Mail on Sunday, May 19, 2002.

ICE-cold 7-Up is in hot water in the US over a zany new advert running on yoof station MTV. It depicts a marketing bod doling out tins of 7-Up to convicts. He drops a can, but refuses to bend to pick it up and at the end of the ad, he sits uncomfortably in a prison cell as a much larger inmate puts his arm round him.

In a letter to 7-Up executives, the group Stop Prison Rape says: 'Prisoner rape is often the subject of jokes and your company is only perpetuating the callousness regarding this horrific, widespread abuse.' 7-Up, owned by our own Cadbury Schweppes, responded that the state of US prisons was not its responsibility.

Now Stop Prison Rape and 79 other pressure groups are planning a 7-Up boycott assuming they can find any prison-reforming, liberal-minded folk who drink the stuff.