In response to several requests under the Freedom of Information Act, the White House late Friday released a partial list of visitors during roughly the first six-months of Obama’s administration. You can view the entire list at Whitehouse.gov. The Wall Street Journal and MSNBC are both reporting on the politics and law behind the requests, while most media outlets are just focusing on the celebrities. According to MSNBC, the White House rejected their request that all the names of visitors be released. “Like the Bush administration before it, Obama is arguing that any release is voluntary, not required by law, despite two federal court rulings to the contrary.” I don’t know the law on this point, so I won’t argue who’s right one way or the other. Not surprisingly, the administration is spinning it that they’re providing “transparency like you’ve never seen before.”

So why is this important at all to the world of beer? Given that one of the neo-prohibitionist movements most persistent claims is that the beer lobby has undue influence over politics in Washington, one name fairly jumped off the page of the Wall Street Journal report, a name which is confirmed by the official White House list. From January 20 to July 31, the president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, visited the White House seven times (that’s over once a month) and met personally with President Obama twice. The Journal disingenuously characterizes Lavizzo-Mourey as “a thinker in health policy,” when his organization’s true aims have been revealed as something very different. See, for example, the Center For Consumer Freedom’s report Behind the Neo-Prohibition Campaign, which details the true agenda of the RWJF. But perhaps more troubling, is their and other neo-prohibitionist’s persistent claims that the beer lobby has bought favorable treatment disproportionate to other industries. For a recent example, the Marin Institute’s facetious report entitled Big Beer Duopoly made this claim less than two weeks ago.

But let’s look at the facts, at least with regard to the White House. For all their lobbyist spending, not one beer industry representative visited the White House over a six-month period, while during the same time the most pernicious neo-prohibitionist group, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, had monthly visits to the White House, including two meetings with POTUS. Of course, it’s possible that beer lobbyists did visit the White House and their names are among those not released by the Obama administration. But since most of the list does include other business leaders and given the White House’s current anti-lobbyist policy, that seems less likely. And let’s not forget that President Obama appointed the former head of MADD, Charles Hurley, to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The obvious conclusion is that what this reveals is the propaganda behind the neo-prohibitionst claims regarding the beer lobby. As is typical, once again they’ve been shown to not be truthful. While claiming undue political influence on the part of the beer industry, the truth is that neo-prohibitionists have the ear of the President. Considering today is Halloween, that may be the scariest news of all.

Dan Mindus at the Center for Consumer Freedom recently published a report entitled Behind the Neo-Prohibition Campaign detailing just how deep the tentacles of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) go in funding neo-prohibitionist groups and campaigns. As someone who pays attention to the interconnectedness of the neo-prohibitionst organizations, I was still floored by what Mindus uncovered. I often take some flack for crying conspiracy concerning these organizations but I feel a certain vindication at just how big a role RWJF actually plays in leading the charge against alcohol.

Here’s an excerpt from the report:

America’s anti-alcohol movement is composed of dozens of overlapping community groups, research institutions, and advocacy organizations, but they are brought together and given direction by one entity: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the RWJF has spent more than $265 million between 1997 and 2002 to tax, vilify, and restrict access to alcoholic beverages. Nearly every study disparaging alcohol in the mass media, every legislative push to limit marketing or increase taxes, and every supposedly “grassroots” anti-alcohol movement was conceived and coordinated at the RWJF’s headquarters. Thanks to this one foundation, the U.S. anti-alcohol movement speaks with one voice.

For the RWJF, it is an article of faith that diminishing per capita consumption across the board can contain the social consequences of alcohol abuse. Therefore, it has engaged in a long-term war to reduce overall drinking by all Americans. The RWJF relentlessly audits its own programs, checking to see if each dollar spent is having the maximum impact on reducing per capita consumption. Over the past 10 years, this blueprint has been refined. Increased taxes, omnipresent roadblocks, and a near total elimination of alcohol marketing are just a few of the tactics the RWJF now employs in its so-called “environmental” approach.

The environmental approach seeks to shift blame from the alcohol abuser to society in general (and to alcohol providers in particular). So the RWJF has turned providers into public enemy number one, burdening them with restrictions and taxes to make their business as difficult and complex as possible. The environmental approach’s message to typical consumers, meanwhile, is that drinking is abnormal and unacceptable. The RWJF seeks to marginalize drinking by driving it underground, away from mainstream culture and public places.

The RWJF funds programs that focus on every conceivable target, at every level from local community groups to state and federal legislation. Every demographic group is targeted: women, children, the middle class, business managers, Hispanics, Blacks, Whites, Native Americans. Every legal means is used: taxation, regulation, litigation. Every PR tactic: grassroots advocacy, paid advertising, press warfare. Every conceivable location: college campuses, sporting events, restaurants, cultural activities, inner cities, residential neighborhoods, and even bars.

The RWJF scored a major victory in 2000 with a federal .08 BAC mandate, and can claim credit for restrictions on alcohol in localities all over the country. But its $265 million has accomplished much more: it has put in place all the elements required for more sweeping change. This includes a vast network of local community organizations, centers for technical support, a compliant press, and a growing body of academic literature critical of even moderate alcohol consumption. The next highly publicized study or angry local movement may now reach the “tipping point” where the RWJF-funded anti-alcohol agenda snowballs into the kind of orchestrated frenzy the tobacco industry knows well.

You can read the entire report in a pdf, and if you care about keeping alcohol legal in the U.S., I’d highly encourage you to do so. The report, Behind the Neo-Prohibition Campaign, is only 28 pages and includes a list of the organizations and people to watch out for.

Here’s another excerpt, listing the main points in the RWJF’s plan of attack:

The Anti-Alcohol Movement’s Game Plan

The RWJF-funded anti-alcohol movement seeks to convince the public of the following propositions:

• The social consequences of alcohol consumption are immense, and require drastic action.
• The vast majority of Americans either abuse alcohol or don’t drink it. The former shouldn’t have access to alcohol, and the latter won’t care if you take it away.
• Responsible drinking is an oxymoron.
• Drinking is not normal, it is not acceptable, and it should be isolated from mainstream culture.
• Adult drinking encourages kids to engage in reckless behavior.
• The alcohol industry “targets” children, abusers, and minorities with “deceptive” advertising.
• Alcohol advertising leads inexorably to abuse.
• Convenient, inexpensive alcohol leads inevitably to its abuse.
• There is no such thing as responsible drinking and driving.

The more the public hears these messages, the more they will tolerate the legislation and regulation of the “environmental approach.” Billboards have been taken down, hours of service have been slashed, roadblocks have been thrown up, legal BAC levels have come down, taxes have been raised, ads in restaurants have been eliminated. It’s only the beginning.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. These folks are committed fanatics. They cannot be reasoned with. They will not bow to logic. They cannot be appeased. They have no qualms about bending the truth or outright fabrication. They will do absolutely anything to advance their misguided cause. They hate me and you, too, if you think drinking beer is okay.