Neo-Prohibitionists

MADD Thinks It’s Parents Fault That Kids Drink

by Jay Brooks on April 15, 2012 · 1 comment

I know I’m beating a dead horse, but I don’t like what MADD has become. Despite the good intentions of its founding, it has veered into neo-prohibitionism and often uses the cudgel of protecting kids in its propaganda. Over the weekend, MADD’s twitter feed sent out this missive:

When teens feel they have their parents’ approval to drink, they do it more. Power of Parents.

I’m not sure where that absurd bit of propaganda originated, because the link in the tweet takes you to their Power of Parents page, which is thick with propaganda for parents. The problem with the “power of parents,” is that according to every study I’ve ever seen, that by the time kids hit their teens, that power is at an all-time low. Teenagers are influenced very little by their parents during those years. It’s their peers that influence them the most, making any “power” rather illusory.

But just the idea that they’d drink more of their parents said it was okay seems so painfully obvious as to be meaningless. My own mother kept our basement refrigerator stocked with beer for me and my friends. She did that in exchange for my promise to not take drugs. It was a good deal, and I kept up my end of the bargain, and she knew where I was, who I was with and that I was safe, albeit enjoying a few beers. Most of my friends’ parents knew about it, too, and felt it was fine with them, too. Did we drink more? Absolutely. Did we all turn out to be reprobates and criminals. Not a one of us I’m still in touch with is anything but a model citizen with a good job, a family, and all the trappings. Of course, if my mother, who was a nurse, did that today, she’d probably be jailed.

And there’s the rub. Why shouldn’t it be parents who decide whether their kids should drink alcohol in the home. Why should the state dictate that? Not everyone matures at the same rate. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not age that determines when someone is “ready” to drink, but their level of maturity, their ability to handle the responsibility. You probably know someone who’s 30 that shouldn’t be allowed the keys to a car sober and an 18-year old that’s wise beyond their years. We choose an arbitrary age because it’s easier and we don’t have to think too much. We live in a paternal society, where the government makes many, many decisions about how we are to live that people used to make for themselves. It hasn’t made society much better, as far as I can tell. It’s just made us lazy and stupid, and many people have lost the ability to think for themselves.

MADD followed up the first tweet with this one.

Did you know that 74% of kids turn to their parents for guidance on drinking

Again, that stretches credulity. It certainly runs counter to my understanding of how teenagers operate, and flies in the face of my own experience, too. And, as usual, the factoid is not cited; there’s no source for it, but that’s pretty typical for MADD and the other neo-prohibitionists. They either make these things up wholesale or pay someone to do a study that gets the result they want so they can pretend they didn’t just make it up. Three out every four kids go to their parents for advice on drinking? Uh, huh. Sure they do.

But okay, let’s say that’s true. The “power of parents” suggested by MADD says that parents shouldn’t drink in front of them, because that would give them the idea it’s okay to drink alcohol. Pushed by neo-prohibitionist lobbying, many states have actually made it illegal for a parent to give their children under 21 a drink. But teaching our kids about alcohol is precisely what parents should be doing so that they don’t go off to college and go crazy, binge drinking and getting into all manner of trouble. Drinking in front of your children responsibly models the proper behavior you want them to emulate. My kids have my approval to drink, they just know they’re not allowed to until they’re old enough. By the time they’ve reached that age, they’ll be ready, because I’ll have taught them about it as best I can, without breaking the asinine laws we live under. That’s what parenting means. It isn’t just telling them “no,” “don’t do it,” or “lying to them about drinking,” as the neo-prohibitionists would have us do. That’s the real power of parents, in a world with alcohol in it, you have to engage your kids with alcohol, too, not just pretend it doesn’t exist until they turn 21 and are magically expected to know what to do next, with no education, experience or role models.

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My Home County Healthiest In State Despite Higher Than Average Binge Drinking

by Jay Brooks on April 3, 2012 · 1 comment

in Editorial,Just For Fun,Politics & Law

My family and I live just north of San Francisco, in Marin County. We moved here a number of years ago to be closer to my wife’s family, who live in Sonoma County. When she was working in San Francisco, Marin was in the middle of work and family, so it made sense. There’s a lot of good things to recommend here, though it is a very expensive place to live, and in fact a few years ago I saw that it was the third-most expensive county for real estate in the United States.

Our local newspaper, the Marin Independent Journal (or I.J.) — which in the interest of full disclosure is part of the Bay Area Newsgroup, the group I write my newspaper column for — had an interesting headline today about the health of Marin’s residents. In Marin County ranked healthiest county in state for third year in a row, despite residents’ love of alcohol, the author reports on a new study recently released by the neo-prohibitionist Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, along with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. This is the third year of the survey, which ranks the health of America’s counties. For the third straight year Marin County was declared the most healthy California county. For an equal number of years, Marin also has the dubious distinction of a higher than average level of binge drinking.

The percentage of Marin residents who told the pollsters they had engaged in binge drinking within the past 30 days — 24 percent — exceeded the state average of 17 percent and the national benchmark of 8 percent. The survey defines binge drinking as consuming more than four alcoholic beverages on a single occasion, if you’re a women, and five drinks if you’re a man.

But maybe that’s the case because there’s little or no correlation between the two, or at least not the correlation that the neo-prohibitionists who funded the study would prefer. They assume, for primarily political and philosophical reasons, that binge drinking is unhealthy. But what if it’s not? What if it has more to do with the way it’s now defined, which again has more to do with politics than reality. The way “binge drinking” is defined has greatly narrowed over the past few decades which is at least one reason why anti-alcohol groups keep insisting that binge-drinking is such a growing societal problem. But at the same time, several recent studies and meta-studies have revealed that people who drink moderately tend to live longer than those who abstain, an inconvenient fact that is rarely mentioned by neo-prohibitionist groups because it doesn’t fit with their agenda. But even worse, from their point of view, some of these same studies have concluded that even people who binge drink tend to be healthier and live longer than the total abstainers. So perhaps binge drinking and health are more closely associated than we think, just not in the way that neo-prohibitionists would prefer. The least healthy county for which there’s data, Del Norte, has a lower rate of binge drinking (10%) than the healthiest.

But as even the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation makes clear in the own press release about the survey, “healthier counties are no more likely than unhealthy counties to have lower rates of excessive drinking.”

Here’s the top counties in states, followed by the county’s “excessive drinking” percentage, followed by their state’s average, with the “national benchmark” being 8%:

Alabama (Shelby): 13%/12%
Alaska (Southeast Fairbanks): 13%/19%
Arizona (Santa Cruz): 18%/19%
Arkansas (Benton): 12%/12%
California (Marin): 24%/17%
Colorado (Pitkin): 30%/18%
Connecticut (Tolland): 17%/18%
Delaware (New Castle): 21%/19%
Florida (St. Johns): 21%/16%
Georgia (Fayette): 18%/14%
Hawaii (Honolulu): 18%/19%
Idaho (Blaine): 23%/15%
Illinois (Kendall): 23%/19%
Indiana (Hamilton): 17%/16%
Iowa (Winneshiek): 19%/20%
Kansas (Riley): 22%/15%
Kentucky (Oldham): 16%/11%
Louisiana (St. Tammany): 19%/15%
Maine (Sagadahoc): 17%/17%
Maryland (Howard): 14%/15%
Massachusetts (Dukes): 29%/19%
Michigan (Leelanau): 20%/18%
Minnesota (Steele): 18%/19%
Mississippi (DeSoto): 10%/11%
Missouri (St. Charles): 24%/17%
Montana (Gallatin): 22%/19%
Nebraska (Cedar): 23%/19%
Nevada (Douglas): 20%/19%
New Hampshire (Merrimack): 16%/18%
New Jersey (Hunterdon): 18%/16%
New Mexico (Los Alamos): 11%/13%
New York (Putnam): 21%/17%
North Carolina (Wake): 15%/13%
North Dakota (Griggs): 19%/22%
Ohio (Delaware): 20%/17%
Oklahoma (Cleveland): 16%/14%
Oregon (Benton): 15%/16%
Pennsylvania (Union): 16%/18%
Rhode Island (Bristol): 17%/19%
South Carolina (Beaufort): 20%/14%
South Dakota (Brookings): 20%/19%
Tennessee (Williamson): 15%/9%
Texas (Collin): 13%/16%
Utah (Morgan): 9%/9%
Vermont (Chittenden): 20%/19%
Virginia (Fairfax): 20%/16%
Washington (San Juan): 21%/17%
West Virginia (Pendelton): 12%/10%
Wisconsin (St. Croix): 31%/24%
Wyoming (Teton): 22%/17%

In every single case, for the healthiest county in every one of the 50 states, their “excessive drinking” percentage is above the national benchmark, and in many cases well above it. 38 of the 50 states’ healthiest counties are at least twice the national benchmark and six are within a point, or more, of tripling it. Every state’s binge drinking average is well above the national average, which seems strange. And in 35 of the states, the healthiest county also has a binge drinking percentage that’s the same or higher than the state average, too. But the obvious takeaway is what you’d expect given total mortality studies, which is that there’s an inverse correlation between binge drinking and health. The counties with the healthiest residents also have higher numbers of binge drinkers. That much is obvious and is supported by the data, despite the story being spun being very different, even the opposite of what conclusions can be drawn from the numbers. Not that they’re making it easy to see. I had to look at each state and then each county’s records to make a chart of this somewhat damning data.

Of course, part of this is how meaningless our definition of binge drinking has become. Including people who drink five or more drinks in a single setting once a month or even once a year distorts the real issues of problem drinkers. It inflates the numbers, which is good if your agenda is to make false accusations about how bad alcohol is for society but terrible if you really want to adress those problems.

Here in California, the five healthiest counties are:

Marin
Santa Clara
San Benito
Placer
San Mateo

Every single one of the ten healthiest counties in California have an excessive drinking rate above national benchmark, too.

Larry Meredith, director of the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services, is quoted in the IJ’s article, saying. “Our strategy must continue — to eliminate health disparities, and conditions that undermine a long and happy life.” Except that he keeps insisting that binge drinking, as defined by the study, “continues to be an issue,” despite the fact that the same study’s numbers seem to indicate the opposite. In the healthiest counties across the nation, binge drinking, as they define it, is higher in every instance.

Real binge drinkers, the more undefinable people who simply keep drinking and rarely ever stop, are not really captured by this type of survey, because they’re lumped together with responsible people who on occasion drink a little more than usual, whether in celebration of something or to drown their sorrows. As long as we keep drawing more and more people into the category of “binge drinkers,” we dilute the real problem. When that mistake is obvious even by a study conducted by an anti-alcohol organization, and then those results all but ignored, it exposes the propaganda and dishonesty of their agenda.

It’s almost funny to see Marin County’s own anti-alcohol organization, Alcohol Justice (who until last year were the Marin Institue) try to distance themselves from this. Their public affairs director, Michael Scippa, says AJ “shouldn’t be faulted for not being more effective in reducing Marin County’s alcohol consumption.” He lists a number of excuses, such as “availability and Marin being a mostly affluent community” and that “[they're] constantly battling an industry that has enormous resources.” But what is he apologizing for? That Marin County has the state’s healthiest people living in it, despite ignoring his group’s propaganda? Maybe it’s not the people, but the propaganda that’s wrong? Because people all over the country are ignoring his advice and are all the healthier for it.

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Anatomy Of A Propaganda Piece

by Jay Brooks on March 21, 2012 · 1 comment

in Beers,Editorial,Politics & Law

With Alcohol Justice promoting it, I just knew there had to be more to the CNN story Movies May Increase Binge Drinking in Teens. The article is based on a study published in the journal Pediatrics with the more benign title Alcohol Consumption in Movies and Adolescent Binge Drinking in 6 European Countries. But either way, Hollywood is, of course, the bogeyman. The study “surveyed 16,500 students ages 10 to 19 from Germany, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Scotland.”

The students were asked how often they drank five alcoholic beverages during one sitting [interesting a European study has adopted the ridiculous U.S. definition of "binge drinking"], and about the types of movies they watched. Participants were given a list of 50 movies to choose from, which included many top box-office hits from the U.S. The number of drinking scenes was tallied for each movie.

I don’t have the resources to pay to see the whole study, so I don’t know what films are on the list, but the first thing I have to wonder is how many of those films are age-appropriate for 10-year olds? Many Hollywood blockbusters would be at least “PG-13″ (so no 10-12 year olds allowed) or “R” (no 10-17 year olds allowed). Are there many movies with “drinking scenes” that are “G” or that every parent would find appropriate for their 10 through 19 year old child? There’s also no breakdown of how many kids were 10, 15, 19, etc., but I have to believe there’s a vast difference between the effect of watching a film on a ten-year old and a young adult, age 18 or 19. The researchers apparently also considered other so-called “risk factors,” and somehow accounted for each “teen’s levels of rebelliousness or sensation-seeking, peer drinking levels, family drinking patterns, affluence and gender.” That’s a lot of data on 16,500 kids, and almost none of it could be considered the “hard facts” type.

The overall results were that “27% of the sample had consumed >5 drinks on at least 1 occasion in their life.” So roughly 1 out of 4 of the “kids” had consumed 5 drinks at least once, and possibly ONLY once, in their life. And of those 16,500, some of the “kids” were legally allowed to drink 5 beers if they wanted to. In Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, the minimum age for drinking is 16. In Poland and Scotland it’s 18 (though once source I have says it’s 16 in Poland). In Iceland it’s 20. So for at least half the countries where the kids were surveyed, they were permitted to drink at least beer 4 out of the 10 ages of “kids” in the study.

For five-sixths of the countries, at least some of the ages of children surveyed were likewise legally allowed to drink alcohol. Like the age breakdowns, there’s no information available (at least to me) about how many of those surveyed were from which country. Given all the supposed control factors they accounted for, the legal age at which people in the surveyed countries are permitted to drink alcohol seems nakedly absent and, at least to my way of thinking, a rather important omission.

And one last comment about their methodology, such as it was. To determine each film’s — I don’t know, “quotient,” “unworthiness” or whatever — “the number of drinking scenes was tallied for each movie” by the researchers. But is the sheer number of times there’s a scene of people drinking in any way relevant? Is there no context to each scene? Are there not positive and negative ways to portray drinking alcohol? I already know the answer to that one, as obviously the researchers are convinced that ANY depiction of people drinking alcohol they consider wrong, but of course a second’s thought will reveal that to be patently nonsense. Just counting how often people are seen drinking alcohol in a film really tells you nothing about how influential it will be, or indeed, if it registers anything at all. Shown being consumed responsibly, it could just as easily be a positive influence.

Personally, I’m much more concerned about my kids seeing casual violence in films than drinking. But there, as well as in America, research continues to claim that there’s a direct “link between drinking in movies and adolescent alcohol consumption habits.” This latest study’s conclusion likewise claims that the “link between alcohol use in movies and adolescent binge drinking was robust and seems relatively unaffected by cultural contexts.”

But in the last paragraphs — well after most people probably stopped reading — was what I’d been thinking as I read this, that “even though the European study shows a strong association between what is seen on the movie screen and binge drinking, it cannot show cause and effect.” Like Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder, not everything is as it seems.

And despite the tone of the story up until that point having been confidently certain, as expressed in the headline’s more movies, more binging (or better mo movies, mo binging), it may not be as certain as they would have you believe. Here’s the smoking gun.

It may be that binge drinking teens seek out movies that have alcohol scenes, or it could be that seeing scenes of alcohol use in movies makes them more likely to binge drink. More research is needed to confirm these findings.

I continue to be troubled by the wide range of ages surveyed, because in my experience those are the ages when people change more in a shorter period of time than at any other time in their entire life. The conclusion suggests that to combat this scourge, parents should “go to the movies with [their kids] and discuss what you’re seeing. What you say matters more than what one TV show or one movie says.” In other words, be a parent. So is this a problem of parenting or the movies? Should movies be stripped of adult content because kids might watch them? That does seem to be a common strategy by neo-prohibitionist groups, especially with regard to advertising.

In the end, this seems like yet another study riddled with more questions than answers. But, as is typical, those questions — if the media raises them at all — are buried at the end of the article, well after the average person has given up reading and has moved on to something else. What we’re left with is a “survey” (and we all now how teenagers always tell the truth about what they’re doing) of kids in six varied nations (with different minimum drinking ages) who are of widely different ages (from a childlike ten to a young adult 19) who appear to binge drink more (or at least once) if they see Hollywood blockbuster movies (or it may be teens who drink prefer those movies). Tell me again how exactly that’s news?

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Oh, The Horror: Children Recognize Beer Brands

by Jay Brooks on March 19, 2012 · 3 comments

in Beers,Editorial,Politics & Law

Another classic propaganda study was just released in Britain, using the all-too-common meme of “think of the children” as the wedge to attack alcohol advertising. Ever since Prohibition ended miserably here in the U.S., anti-alcohol groups turned their attention to other methods of crippling alcohol, and attacking advertising has been a favorite strategy. It’s quite common in the UK, too, as similar groups there have no doubt witnessed its effectiveness on our side of the pond. This one is being reported by the Daily Mirror as More Children Familiar with Alcohol Brands Than Snacks, which is no doubt exactly the alarm that the anti-alcohol organization behind it was hoping to raise. The so-called “study” the Mirror is reporting on was conducted for Alcohol Concern, a “national charity on alcohol misuse” which certainly sounds like one of our American organizations that cover themselves in the cloak of health and concern for the children.

So let’s look at the study. 400 children, ages 10 and 11 (the same age as my son Porter), were shown brand names and images. Of those, 79% correctly recognized Carlsberg as a beer, or at least as alcohol. The same percentage also correctly identified Smirnoff as alcohol whereas only 74% recognized Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream (which must have greatly chagrined Ben & Jerry’s ad agency). Oh, the horror! From there, of course, the leap is made that tighter controls need to be placed on the advertising of alcoholic beverages lest the kiddies remain able to know what’s alcohol and what’s not. Because if children know which brands are alcohol, then obviously they will drink them. If then can identify them, then obviously they’re being targeted and all ads therefore “encourage immoderate consumption.” Alcohol Concern asserts that alcohol advertising must be “not attractive to children,” as if adults and children like completely different things.

Okay, a couple of things. First, being able to identify which brands are alcoholic drinks and which are not does not mean the recognition came from advertising. That almost 4 out of 5 kids could identify Carlsberg, one of the best-selling beers in the UK, is just as likely due to its popularity, being in those kids’ homes, sitting in the refrigerator, and seeing their parents drinking it. Or seeing it when they’re at the local football game, with family and family friends drinking it while watching the game; or at a picnic; or they may see it walking the supermarket aisles as their parents shop. There are many places where kids can see alcohol brands, including many positive experiences, that do not have to do with advertising. Kids do not have tunnel vision and only retain what they see in ads on television. Yet Mark Leyshon, from Alcohol Concern, insists their “study” does “provide more evidence that alcohol marketing messages are getting through to young people well before they are legally able to buy alcohol.” I’d say that’s true only if you ignore reality.

On some level, isn’t it good news that kids know the difference between alcohol and soda? And guess which one they prefer? Think about it. Do kids like bitter tastes like beer or sugary sweet flavors like soft drinks? Study after study I’ve seen, and not just ones by neo-prohibitionists, always show young people prefer sweet tastes over bitter ones. I know my kids do. Don’t yours? So it’s in their interest — and yours and society’s if the anti-alcohol nutjobs are to be believed — if they don’t accidentally reach for a bottle of Carlsberg thinking the green bottle contains Sprite or 7Up? Knowledge should be a good thing, but apparently Alcohol Concern thinks it would be better if our children were completely ignorant.

Second, the study itself seems overly simplistic at best. The kids were shown “the brand names and logos of common alcohol products, as well as images from TV alcohol advertisements,” along with “brand images, logos and TV adverts for popular non-alcoholic products such as soft drinks and breakfast cereals.” Then it was multiple choice. The kids could choose for each image they were shown between three choices: “food,” “soft drink” or “alcoholic drink.” I can’t speak for their ten and eleven year olds, but I’m fairly certain my own son (who’s 10-1/2) could do a pretty good job of just guessing between those three choices. Most successful brand images work because the association with the products are natural or complimentary, not inscrutable and hard to figure out.

But even so, would it have been better for children’s health if they could more easily identify the “soft drinks” or “sugary snacks,” which ultimately are at least as bad for their health as alcohol? I know that kids under 18 in civilized places (or 21 in places less so) should not be drinking alcohol, and I accept that children should not have unrestricted access to it. But the fact remains that, all things being equal, the excess sugar and other chemicals in soft drinks and many, many processed foods are terrible for everybody, children included. Yet Alcohol Concern — and indeed most anti-alcohol groups — seem to have no difficulty with the many unhealthy products in the world and are single-mindedly convinced that it’s alcohol alone that it is the cause of society’s woes.

For me personally, as a parent, I find this concern completely absurd, unfounded and misguided. My kids could name more alcohol brands than the average ten and seven-year old, because it’s “daddy’s work.” Their hearts sink every time a package arrives on our doorsep and it’s not a new book or toy, but instead is beer. Our house is full of beer. It’s lining the hallway, in boxes in the foyer, sitting around the dining room, the kitchen, the garage, and stuffed into four refrigerators. But my kids have no interest in it whatsoever. Zip, zero, nada. They know it’s “for adults.” And that’s partly why I’m convinced these sorts of attacks on alcohol advertising using children as a shield are not about the kids in the least. They never are. I’m glad my kids know the difference between what they’re allowed to drink and what they’re not. Don’t all parents teach their kids what they can drink? In our home, it’s simple, really. No soda, no beer and no alcohol. They know, and that knowledge is powerful and effective. Just say know.

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A Mea Culpa: Hoodwinked By Propaganda

by Jay Brooks on February 4, 2012 · 12 comments

in Editorial,Just For Fun

On Thursday I posted what I though was a fun little piece with some interesting statistics about how much is consumed on Super Bowl Sunday. In The Super Bowl: By The Numbers, I selected a few of the fun statistics that had been posted a few years earlier in a post on the blog Tree Hugger. Because it was “just for fun,” I didn’t question their statistics or look to see where they came from.

But it looks like I should have, as a few trustworthy commenters have pointed out that one of those factoids doesn’t make sense. The statistic in question? That Americans drink 325.5 million Gallons of beer on Super Sunday. As was pointed out, that math doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. As Jess put it: “Doesn’t that equal over ten 12 oz. bottles of beer for every man, woman and child in the country? Or if only the 151 million watching the game are drinking, close to a case of beer for every viewer. And, at over 10 million barrels, 5% of all the beer sold in the US all year long is consumed in one day?” So what’s going on?

The estimated population of America in January 2010, when this number was first published was an estimated 308.4 million people. Today, according to the Census Bureau’s Population Clock we’re closing in on 313 million.

325.5 million gallons is roughly 41,664,000,000 ounces, or 3,472,000,000 12-oz. bottles (that’s nearly 3.5 billion bottles) or 2,604,000,000 pint glasses (2.6 billion pints). So assuming the 2010 population, that means each man, woman and child would have to drink 11.258 bottles of beer during the Super Bowl to make that math work. In pints, it would amount to 8.44 pints per person.

But, of course, kids aren’t drinking so let’s take them out of the equation. The census bureau states that in 2010 there were 234,564,000 adults in America (which, you have to laugh, is 18-year olds and above). Since apart from being allowed to drink alcohol, U.S. citizens are considered adults at age 18, I don’t have any statistics for 21 and above. But alright, let’s use that figure; after all the neo-prohibitionists keep claiming our youth are a bunch of drunks anyway. Assuming the 234.5 million figure, each adult would have to drink nearly 15 bottles of beer each or just over 11 pints.

And despite evil alcohol advertising, not every adult chooses to drink alcohol. But how many? That’s trickier. CBS reported in 2010 that 60% of American drink alcohol while a Rasmussen Report in November 2010 found that 29% said they never drink alcohol, meaning 71% do. Additional studies report findings that range widely, so it’s pretty hard to pin down an exact number. So for our purposes let’s examine 60% and 70%. 60% of 234.5 million is 140,736,000 and 70% is 164,194,800. So depending on whose number you accept adult American drinkers had 24.7 bottles (just over a case) or 21.2 bottles (a few bottles shy of a case). For 16-oz. servings, it’s between 18.5 and almost 16 pints. Even drilled down that far, that’s some Brobdingnagian drinking on the part of every American for the Super Bowl.

So from just about every angle, that 325.5 million gallons of beer on one day factoid appears to be a complete fantasy. It doesn’t seem physically possible that Americans could consume that much, even if they were so inclined. So who’s the Snake Oil Salesman selling that lie?

To Tree Hugger’s credit, they did include links at the bottom of their original post under the headline References, where the links take you to the sources they used. They’re a bit of a mishmash, and I had to essentially look at each one to sort it out, but eventually I found the source of the beer figure. Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that it came from Alcohol Justice, back in the day when they were still called the Marin Institute. As soon as I saw that name, I knew it was probably them. When you click on the link, you can download the 2010 “Fact” Sheet from their ridiculous “Free the Bowl” campaign. And there on page 4 is “Americans consume more than 325.5 million gallons of beer during the Super Bowl.” While many of the factoids there are footnoted with the source, this one, of course, is not. So where did they get it? I have to assume they just made it up, since it’s so absurd a figure.

I’m constantly amazed that an organization that claims to hold the alcohol industry “accountable” for what it calls lies and exaggerations, can be so utterly lacking in its own truthiness. Because that number simply can’t be true, and they can’t possibly be unaware that it’s not true. If you’re insisting that others be truthful, I’d think at the very least that you should apply that same standard to yourself. At the very least, it’s hypocritical.

And that’s also why it’s so insidious. They make up a number, put out a press release, which is then picked up and disseminated uncritically by someone either unfamiliar or unaware of their agenda. Who knows how many other news organizations, websites, blogs, etc. cited that statistic. And each one of them, like Tree Hugger, has the potential to spread it again, without the original source. Even though they cited it, however vaguely, most people wouldn’t even notice or question it. Many probably passed it along without even citing where it came from, and in short order it’s out there and people believe it. So that’s my mea culpa. I was hoodwinked by the propaganda. I should have looked at that number more closely, and the source of it, as well. I was just trying to have a bit of fun with the Super Bowl. Serves me right, I guess. So now you know.

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State Alcohol Administrators Slam Alcohol Justice

by Jay Brooks on January 27, 2012 · 2 comments

in Editorial,News,Politics & Law

You probably knew that each state has some form of an ABC, an alcohol control organization that after Prohibition was created to administer their state’s laws regarding alcohol. Not surprisingly, they also have an organization where the professionals in these state organizations can get together and share information, how they do things, and generally learn from and help one another be better at their jobs. It’s called the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators, or NCSLA. Their stated purpose is:

The purposes of the Association shall be to promote the enactment of the most effective and equitable types of state alcoholic beverage control laws; to devise and promote the use of methods which provide the best enforcement of the particular alcoholic beverage control laws in each state; to work for the adoption of uniform laws insofar as they may be practicable; to promote harmony with the federal government in its administration of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act; and to strive for harmony in the administration of the alcoholic beverage control laws among the several states.

They have an annual convention where they get together, along with other events throughout the year. Also, in addition to the obvious members, it’s also open to distributors, suppliers, retailers, law firms, health organizations and anyone else with an interest in the administration of alcohol at the state and federal level.

Well. Earlier this week, Alcohol Justice posted a press release entitled Big Alcohol Dominates Alcohol Regulator Meeting, which touted an article in the new edition of the journal Addiction that they claim “Documents Unhealthy Influence of Alcohol Industry over State Regulators.” Not surprisingly, the author of the article, Sarah M. Mart, is the Director of Research for Alcohol Justice. So they created the propaganda, then promote it is as if it’s news and/or impartial information and it’s not surprising that it just happens to support their agenda. Is the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy lost on them?

In this case, the article, Top priorities for alcohol regulators in the United States: protecting public health or the alcohol industry?, purports to examine the “NCSLA Annual Meeting [that] took place 20–24 June 2010 in New Orleans, Louisiana.” Smart claims as a “finding” that “[m]ore than two-thirds (72.2%) of the 187 conference attendees were from alcohol producers, importers, wholesalers, retailers or their attorneys. Nearly two-thirds (65.0%) of the 40 panelists were from the alcohol industry. The author of this paper was the only attendee, and the only panelist, representing public health policy.”

In the press release, Alcohol Justice spins it this way.

In a peer-reviewed article in the February 2012 issue of Addiction, Sarah Mart, director of research at Alcohol Justice, has documented the alcohol industry’s excessive involvement in a 2010 annual conference of state liquor administrators.

“With alcohol use being the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S, you would think state regulator meetings would focus on the most effective and cost-effective ways to reduce alcohol-related harm,” stated Mart. “But this event was really about the industry’s agenda.”

Mart’s article details her experience at the annual National Conference of State Liquor Administrators (NCSLA), which took place in June 2010. More than two-thirds (72%) of the 187 meeting attendees, and 65% of the panelists, were from the alcohol industry. The rest represented state alcohol control systems and federal government agencies. Mart was the only participant representing public health policy.

“The NCSLA is dominated by the global companies that produce, import, distribute and sell alcohol,” said Mart. “Not surprisingly, the Association’s liquor control agenda lacks public health considerations.”

On average, 79,000 deaths annually are attributed to alcohol consumption. In 2005, there were over 1.6 million hospitalizations and 4 million emergency room visits for alcohol-related causes. Alcohol-related costs to state budgets are staggering, yet this trade organization of state regulators, which could play an important role in reducing the harm, has no stated position supporting public health.

“Big Alcohol panelists actually sent regulators a warning message: Be industry-friendly. Don’t rock the boat of commerce with public health concerns, or your job may be on the line,” reported Mart. “The Federal officials that were present also spoke about supporting the industry, instead of protecting public safety. That was a disappointment.”

Sounds bad, right? Well, the NCSLA sees it a different way. They’ve now responded with their own press release telling the other side of this story.

NCSLA, The Inclusive Crucible Of Alcohol Policy Issues, Dismayed By Inaccuracies Of “Sour Grapes”

When requested to comment on the recent press release from an entity named “Alcohol Justice”(formerly known as The Marin Institute), NCSLA President William A. Kelley, Jr. today said,

“The National Conference of State Liquor Administrators (“NCSLA”) has for decades been the only organization of the 50 states with the sole clear, transparent and inclusive purpose of effectively controlling alcoholic beverages. That purpose cannot be effective without input from all interested parties. Indeed since this Nation was founded, the fundamental principle of American government has been to make decisions with the consent of the governed. That requires substantive communication with and consideration of the concerns and competing interests of those who would be subject to regulatory action by the federal and state government. This is the hallmark of a real democracy.

The NCSLA is dismayed at the conduct of any organization which has chosen to re-brand itself and seeks to create relevance for its new brand by pandering for headlines, while taking no real, affirmative action to support and defend the federal and state beverage alcohol regulators in the executive, judicial and legislative branches of state and federal government. These federal and state regulators stand alone as they fulfill their lawful obligations to strike a balance between the protection of the common good and the service of the public demand for the different sorts of alcoholic beverages made available by this legitimate, responsible industry.

The agenda of self-promotion by “Alcohol Justice” is obvious and unavailing. The telling fact is that the now re-branded entity formerly known Marin Institute has repeatedly chosen not to become a member of the NCSLA despite the numerous invitations that have been extended to them and the years of courtesies from the NCSLA they have enjoyed in the form of expense-paid attendance at NCSLA conferences and participation on NCSLA panels. It is equally telling that this statement comes when further special treatment has been denied this re-branded entity while at the same time it was directly invited and encouraged to join the NCSLA, take a seat at the proverbial table, but on the same terms as those long met by other public health and public advocacy groups. It is disheartening when any entity with substantial financial resources, yet without the economic hardships endured for years by state beverage alcohol regulators, appears content to do nothing.

The silence of this re-branded entity is deafening in the national dialogue that continues as Congress, The President of the United States, the people of the state of Washington and the representatives of the people in all the 50 states grapple with the modern issues of beverage alcohol control. This struggle is the American legacy of that failed experiment named “Prohibition.”

I look forward to the honor of leading the NCSLA when it convenes in Washington D.C. to continue its efforts in fostering principles and techniques of balanced alcoholic beverages control. Unfortunately it appears that this re-branded entity chooses to continue to sit on the sidelines in its complacency, fermenting in its sour grapes. Perhaps sometime soon the reality will be recognized that much is expected from those who are given much.”

Nicely said, Mr. Kelley. Nicely said.

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