Dry Counties Dwindling

July 20, 2010 By Jay Brooks

usa-today
USA Today ran an interesting story earlier this month about the dry counties dotting still the landscape, areas within eight states where despite alcohol being legal statewide, it’s still illegal in those counties (along with some specific towns). According to Dry America’s Not-So-Sober Reality: It’s Shrinking Fast, many of the remaining 328 may soon become wet, too.

From the article:

Today, 1 in 9 counties is still dry. But drys are losing ground on all levels, from the state — since 2002, 14 states have ended bans on Sunday alcohol sales — to the very local. In April, a 19-block section of western Louisville (the M-107 precinct) voted 89-41 to go wet.
The number of Tennessee communities that allow sales of liquor by the drink (in bars and restaurants) has increased 56% since 2003. In the same period, 22 of Texas’ 254 counties and more than 235 of its municipalities have gone wet (or “moist,” a nebulous category in which beer and wine might be legal, but not liquor).
Even in Kansas — the state that produced the ax-wielding saloon-wrecker Carry Nation; that passed the first state prohibition law in 1881; and that did not repeal it until 1948 — 16 counties have gone wet since 2002.

One interesting side note is that economics is one of the most popular reasons, with communities wanting the tax revenue from alcohol sales. But that’s also the way that neo-prohibitionists have been going after alcohol, by trying to impose more and higher taxes. An interesting dichotomy, I’d say. Below is a nice chart of where the dry counties are and their number as compared to the total counties in each state.

dry-counties-2010

The BAC Numbers Game

July 19, 2010 By Jay Brooks

8-ball
Mark Daniels, a British pub owner, had an interesting op-ed piece recently in the Publican about the UK considering lowering their BAC limit. In Drink Driving — It’s a Number’s Game, Daniels laments that “lowering the amount of alcohol allowed in blood before driving won’t stop people being killed on the road. It’ll just mean more deaths get attributed to drink driving than ever before, and ruin more lives in the process.”

That’s certainly what’s happened in the U.S., since thanks to MADD we moved from age 18 in many states to 21 as the minimum drinking age in all states (with a few limited exceptions) with the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, making us the most puritan of all the first-world nations. MADD, of course, claims this had led to safer roads, but the first mandatory seat belt law was also passed in 1984 and today all but one state has some type of mandatory seat belt law not to mention the 1980s is also when car companies began focusing more on car safety. Certainly, there are numerous studies that call into question MADD’s claim. But all it really did was create more criminals by turning responsible people aged 18-21 who continued to drink automatically into villains.

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But that wasn’t nearly enough, they continued lobbying to have the BAC lowered from 0.1% to 0.08% and in “2000, this standard was passed by Congress and by 2005, every state had an illegal .08% BAC limit.” This had the effect once again of criminalizing more people while not really addressing the problem. The recidivist drunk drivers were not the ones in between 0.08% and 0.1%, but people who drank enough to blow 0.15% or above, the true problem drinkers. But MADD’s still not done and has their sight’s set on 0.05%. Naturally, they’ve wasted no time taking credit once again for the positive effects, despite their not really being any.

Here’s Wikipedia’s collaborative take:

However, NHTSA’s definition of “alcohol-related” deaths includes all deaths on U.S. highways involving any measurable amount of alcohol (i.e. >0.01% BAC) in any person involved, including pedestrians. In 2001, for example, the NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System estimated an annual total of 17,448 alcohol-related deaths. The NHTSA breakdown of this estimate is that 8,000 deaths involved only a single car and in most of those cases the only death was the drunk driver, 5,000 sober victims were killed by legally drunk drivers, and there were 2,500 to 3,500 crash deaths in which no driver was legally drunk but alcohol was detected. Furthermore, some of the sober victims undoubtedly included those willing passengers of the drunk drivers. It should also be noted that vehicle safety has been improved since the 1980s, and this has likely resulted in a decrease in all auto fatalities, including alcohol-related deaths. Also, public attitudes are more negative toward drunk driving than they were in the early 1980s. The data also uses raw numbers rather than per capita rates. That being said, however, the number of “alcohol-related” deaths have dropped more so than non-alcohol-related ones (which actually increased in the late 1980s), which shows that the decrease in the former largely drove the substantial decrease in the total fatalities since 1982. It should also be noted that with the increasing age of the baby boomer generation,if you look at statistics on alcohol related crashes among consistent age groups (20-30 in 1985 versus 20-30 in 2005) there are no statistically significant changes in the number of drunk driver related deaths. In 1999, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluated the effectiveness of state .08% BAC laws in reducing the number and severity of crashes involving alcohol. It stated, “Overall, the evidence does not conclusively establish that .08% BAC laws, by themselves, result in reductions in the number and severity of alcohol-related crashes.”

In other words, lowering the limit just led to more arrests and criminalized people but without actually addressing or fixing the problem of drunk driving. It was MADD’s increasingly neo-prohibitionist behavior that led founder Cathy Lightner to leave MADD in 1985. She has since spoken out against the direction the organization has taken. Now the UK is apparently considering the same draconian measures.

Here’s Daniels’ essay, almost in its entirety, though the whole piece can be read at the Publican:

[The UK Government’s] proposal is that the current limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood be reduced to 50mg. This would bring us in to line with many other European countries and, Sir Peter believes, up to 300 lives could be saved by bringing in such a ruling.
I fear, however, that many more could be ruined by its introduction.
The review, which was initially commissioned by a government so health & safety obsessed that George Orwell’s prophecies steadily turned from fiction to fact, plays a dangerous game with numbers.
If we were to reduce the alcohol limit, [the government’s] report estimates that between 168 and 303 lives might be saved. Alternatively, the number of deaths might remain the same but the percentage caused by drink drivers might, instead, rise. In 2007 a report showed that Britain’s drink-driving incidents accounted for 16% of road deaths. By comparison, France has the proposed limit of just 50mg per 100ml, a similar-sized population to ours, but an alcohol-related road death rate of 27%.
While the Government’s intentions might be to bring the UK’s drinking laws in line with our European cousins, they don’t appear to be looking to change the penalties associated with the offence. Sweden, for example, is a country so obsessed with the draconian control of alcohol that it can only be purchased from Government managed outlets and has a drink driving limit of just 20mg/100ml of blood. Merely consuming Night Nurse to help with a cold could put you over the limit. However, unlike Britain’s mandatory minimum 1 year driving ban their penalty ranges from a disqualification of three months to three years. In the UK we also face imprisonment of 6 months to ten years depending on the severity of the offence; in Sweden it’s just one month to two years.
Portugal (50mg), carries no imprisonment for drink driving offences and disqualification of just 15 days to one year. Our immediate neighbours, France, get a minimum disqualification of just 1 month and a maximum of one year. Imprisonment, depending on circumstances, is just two months to two years.
So the proposal is to reduce the amount of alcohol you can have before driving, but not adjust the penalties to reflect the offence.
People who, up to now, have been decent, law-abiding citizens and safe road users would immediately become criminals. Because of one glass of wine they may lose their license, their job and their home in one fell swoop. The effect on their families and the economy could be devastating and the pub trade could simply crumble because its already-dwindling base of customers would be too scared to step outside their homes for a quiet drink with friends.
And what role does the publican hold in this? When the Licensing Act 2003 came in to force five years ago, more onus was put on to the Publican to ensure he served alcohol in a safe and responsible manner. It is already illegal for us to sell alcohol to an individual who we suspect is going to drink and drive, but how much more liability will be put on us in the event of lowering the drink/drive limit? And what about the responsibilities of the off-trade?
If the motor car were to be invented today it would surely be banned immediately. If they rewrote the rules right now, only sensible people with brown hair and Teflon trousers, aged between 38 and 52, would be allowed to have a license, and only then if the Locomotive Act of 1865 was reinstated.
But that is, of course, the problem with Britain today. We have become so safety obsessed that if alcohol or tobacco were invented right now, like the car they would be banned immediately. With the spread of sexually transmitted infections amongst promiscuous youths it is amazing that we are allowed to copulate in anything other than a Government-controlled environment.
Yesterday, as I waited at the bus stop for my children to return home from school, I couldn’t help but notice that at least half the traffic roaring through our village broke the speed limit, 22% of drivers were using mobile phones and three cars still had ridiculous flags hanging off their door frames.
Two drivers took their eyes off the road momentarily to wave a hello to me and one girl was so stupid she was actually eating an apple.
Statistically, then, driving is ruddy dangerous and we shouldn’t be allowed to do it. At all.
And so it is with the alcohol limit for driving. A reduction from 80mg to 50mg will mean that the average person drinking a mid-range pint of beer will immediately be over the limit to drive, and this makes having a limit complete nonsense.
Logically, then, if you’re going to lower the limit it should be to zero but to have such intolerance would be another step backwards for our nation – not to mention our industry – and would mean that anybody who had a glass of wine with their dinner wouldn’t be allowed to drive for a week.
I don’t seek to trivialise the offence and I feel grievously sorry for people who have had to endure such a calamity in their lives. Obviously, if one of my children were to be killed by a drink driver I would want them hanged from my pub’s sign by their genitals, but I am sensible enough to recognise that reducing the limit from 80mg to 50mg is unlikely to prevent such an accident from happening.
All that will have changed is the statistic: instead of being a tragic accident caused by a driver who lost control of their vehicle, it will become a tragic accident that was caused by a drunk driver.
Lowering the amount of alcohol allowed in the blood before driving, then, won’t necessarily save lives. Sadly, it’ll just change the numbers. And, without a sensible review of the penalties also imposed on offenders, potentially ruin more lives in the process.

The zero tolerance idea has already gained quite a bit of traction here, with some local and state jurisdictions adopting it unofficially, despite the fact that the law contradicts that. They’ve just decided what the law is on their own, with no thought to the implications of the police making the law instead of just enforcing it.
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As I’ve long argued, if MADD and the other neo-prohibitionists were really serious about reducing alcohol-related driving accidents, they’d at least also be lobbying for better and more available public transit. Since it's a foregone conclusion that you can't stop people from drinking, making available alternative modes of transportation just seems like an incredibly obvious strategy, and one which every anti-alcohol group has utterly ignored. To me, that's always said something about their true intentions.

One commenter at the Publican, Fredrik Eich, had a nicely sarcastic point of view which I think gets to the heart of it:

[I]f we really wanted to reduce deaths on public roads we could start denormalising and changing perceptions of drivers now. Ban vehicle manufactures from advertising cars and bikes but give money to public transport companies to advertise; thus insuring media bias in favour of our campaign. We can start calling them “merchants of death”. We could make sure cars and bikes have tombstone warnings on them such as “Driving kills” or “Driving harms you and others around you”; which for a refreshing change, is provable beyond reasonable doubt. We could also put images of crash victims on cars and bikes so that people on buses have a clear understanding of what our message is and how selfish drivers are. Eventually, cars and bikes could be banned on public roads and this would be really easy to enforce and would cut out any form of drink driving as well — two birds with one stone. Why are we concerned about a driver having a glass of wine with their Sunday lunch when really we should be making all the drivers eating their Sunday lunch use public transport? If it really is just about saving lives why not!

Funny, but true when you get right down to it. With MADD still working toward lowering the acceptable BAC to 0.05%, we’re moving closer to zero tolerance, a defacto prohibition. That has actually been the prohibitionist strategy literally since 1933, when the 18th Amendment was repealed. Since that time, they’ve been doing whatever they could to make it more difficult for adults to obtain legal alcohol through advertising restrictions, zoning restrictions, minimum age laws, and a host of other end around measures. Today, the big push also involves taxes, as we see all over the country, taking advantage of our economic recession to push their unrelated agenda.
train-elec
Ah, well, sorry for all this rambling, but a lot of interesting ideas came out of Daniels op-ed.

Small Businesses Ask For Alcohol Fee Postponement

July 13, 2010 By Jay Brooks

postponement
If you’ve been following the Marin Institute’s efforts to have San Francisco enact an alcohol fee, then you know that there was a Small Business Commission hearing last night at City Hall. Item 5 on the agenda:

Discussion and possible action to make recommendations to the Small Business Commission on Board of Supervisors File No. 100865 [Establishing an Alcohol Mitigation Fee.] Ordinance amending the San Francisco Administrative Code, Chapter 106, by adding Sections 106 through 106.28, to impose a fee on alcoholic beverage wholesalers and certain other persons who distribute or sell alcoholic beverages in San Francisco to: 1) recover a portion of San Francisco’s alcohol-attributable unreimbursed health costs, and; 2) fund administration costs. Presentation by representatives of the Marin Institute. Explanatory Documents: BOS File No. 100865 and report titled, “The Cost of Alcohol to San Francisco: Analyses Supporting an Alcohol Mitigation Fee.”

Yesterday, the Marin Institute also issued a press release, ‘Charge for Harm’ Alcohol Mitigation Fee Deserves San Francisco Small Business Support, in which they demonstrated how out of touch with reality they are by suggesting small businesses must support higher taxes, higher prices and the very real possibility of a loss of revenue. In case you missed it, I also wrote about that yesterday, too. Presumably, the Marin Institute thought last night’s meeting was a mere formality, but San Francisco business owners were a lot smarter than the Marin Institute gave them credit for.

The result of the hearing was that the Small Business Commission strongly asked supervisor John Avalos (sponsor of the alcohol fee ordinance) to delay a vote on the AMFO until after the August break, which is after Labor Day. Avalos has agreed and so we’ll all have more time to build our case against the AMFO and the faulty nexus study that does not support it. It will also afford an opportunity to spread the other side of the story and correct the propaganda, since so far most of the mainstream media coverage has been very one-sided, giving most people a false impression of the AMFO and its impact.

While it’s far from over, this is a great first round victory for the forces of reason and common sense. It will interesting to see how the Marin Institute spins this. Drink a toast tonight, perhaps in San Francisco or at least with a beer brewed in San Francisco.

Less Than 300 Chronic Drunks

July 12, 2010 By Jay Brooks

san-francisco
Presumably to bolster his support for the proposed alcohol fee in San Francisco, Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius’ newest column, Chronic Drunks’ Treatment Costs S.F. Big Bucks, highlights the use of emergency and health services by the city’s chronic drunks. And it totals a lot of money and understandably frustrates the city’s service providers.

But here’s the thing. A five-year study of the problem revealed that there are only around 225 people — these “chronic inebriants” — that are high ambulance users, and “fewer than 300 individuals account for 80 percent of the ambulance runs for alcohol treatment.” There are around 809,000 people living in San Francisco, meaning less than 3/100th of a percent are chronic drunks abusing the city’s healthcare system, and that’s not including all the people who flock to the city in order to drink. I’d be frustrated, too, but since those fees are already borne in the taxes that every person pays (at the local, city, county, state and federal level) I don’t quite see how further taxing just those people that also drink alcohol is a reasonable remedy to this problem, as supporters of the AMFO (Nevius included) have argued.

The stories Nevius tells are tragic and detail real abuses, but never does he use the phrase “personal responsibility.” Clearly, these are people with problems. But alcohol didn’t cause their problems, something in their personality, life, etc. did. I grew up with a psychotic, alcoholic stepfather who abused my mother and me both emotionally and physically, but even as a child I knew the alcohol didn’t make him that way. There were deep-seated problems that caused his illness and alcohol was just one of the ways he tried to cope. He was responsible for his own behavior, it couldn’t be dismissed or blamed away because he got drunk.

By the statistics in Nevius’ own column, at least 99.97% of San Francisco residents are not abusing emergency services, but he and the other supporters of the new alcohol fee think that all drinkers should be punished for their own good behavior to pay for those who are irresponsible. What could make less sense than that?

Marin Institute Declares Small Businesses Deserve To Go Out Of Business

July 12, 2010 By Jay Brooks

marin-institute
In a press release issued today, the Marin Institute — who’s pushing a mandatory alcohol fee in San Francisco — stated that their bogus ‘Charge for Harm’ Alcohol Mitigation Fee Deserves San Francisco Small Business Support. Yes, by all means, every business should support more taxes and higher prices, that’s just good business.

A hearing is scheduled for this afternoon at 5:30 by the Small Business Commission and will take place at San Francisco City Hall. If you own or run a small business that involves alcohol, be sure to tell them what you think you deserve. Do you deserve to pay more taxes, even though roughly 46% of the price of every beer goes to taxes, which makes it the most heavily taxed product in America? Do you deserve to have higher prices than the rest of the state? Do you deserve to make less money? Do you deserve to have fewer customers? Do you deserve to lay off good employees?

Here’s another brilliant piece of logic from the press release:

The proposed ordinance is supported by a “nexus study” commissioned by the San Francisco City Comptroller’s Office. The study found $17.7 million in direct city and county unreimbursed expenses for alcohol-related problems addressed by community behavioral health services, fire department emergency medical transport, San Francisco General Hospital, and the Sheriff’s department.

Bullshit. The nexus study is titled The Cost of Alcohol to San Francisco: Analyses Supporting an Alcohol Mitigation Fee. It’s whole purpose is to present only one side of the story, ignoring anything and everything that might oppose it or show it for the farce it is. It didn’t “find” anything, it just totaled up some questionable expenses and claimed they were due to alcohol. You can read more detail about the truth of nexus study here.

More tortured logic:

“All San Francisco residents and small businesses unfairly bear the burden of government costs for alcohol-related problems,” said Michele Simon, JD, MPH, research and policy director for the alcohol industry watchdog, Marin Institute. “This relatively small fee will ensure alcohol wholesalers and importers — not bars, restaurants, or retailers — will pay their fair share to mitigate the tremendous economic costs of alcohol harm in San Francisco.”

If, and that’s a big if, “All San Francisco residents and small businesses” share these costs supposedly, but not proven to be, attributable to alcohol, then why shouldn’t all residents and businesses pay for them, equally, like all other taxes? Why single out out alcohol manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, bars, hotels and the people who drink alcohol. Because the fee as it’s been proposed targets alcohol, and by extension the people who drink it. But the vast majority of people who legally drink alcohol do so responsibly and in moderation, and do not burden the city’s resources.

And it’s not a “relatively small fee” because they conveniently keep ignoring the fact that it will be marked up before being passed on to consumers.

And here’s how much they care about the small businesses they think deserve to support the fee:

The alcohol mitigation fee will not be allowed to exceed the costs as outlined in the nexus study, and will be imposed primarily on regional wholesalers and the portion of local brews consumed locally. Most beer is produced by foreign corporations who could easily bear some of the fee.

“[P]rimarily on regional wholesalers?” First of all, what about the distributors in San Francisco? I guess they don’t count. And the regional wholesalers, those are California businesses that would be targeted if they plan to do business in the city — which many of them do — and are located just outside the city in the Bay Area. And going after the foreign beer corporations — forgetting for a moment that they employ tens of thousands of American workers — ignores completely the more than 225 small family-owned breweries in California (eight of which are in San Francisco), along with the hundreds of small wineries and micro-distilleries.

And lastly, this:

“Small business in San Francisco should not let Big Alcohol scare them into opposition,” said Bruce Lee Livingston, executive director of Marin Institute. “We ask small businesses to be supportive, as the policy will charge alcohol wholesalers for harm instead of taxpayers and all taxpaying small businesses.” Livingston added, “We’ve all been paying for the emergency, detox and treatment costs of alcohol, but this smart fee shifts the costs to the Big Beer corporations and their wholesalers.”

Please, what planet does Livingston live on? How could he not realize that the fee will be passed along to “taxpayers and all taxpaying small businesses?” They will be paying. We all will be. He can’t possibly think otherwise, can he? He wants businesses to support their own demise? Because even businesses that don’t sell alcohol, but that benefit from it, will also be harmed by a loss of business in San Francisco. This stupid fee doesn’t shift any burdens whatsoever, though I suspect the Marin Institute knows that.

Proving Direct Harm: SF Nexus Study Finally Released

July 10, 2010 By Jay Brooks

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When San Francisco supervisor John Avolos introduced his (and the Marin institute’s) proposed ordinance, the Alcohol Mitigation Fee Ordinance (AMFO), two weeks ago, he was required to also include a nexus study to assess the impact of the ordinance on San Francisco. Despite the vote on AMFO being next Wednesday, July 14, the nexus study was only yesterday finally released, meaning any opposition has a mere 3 working days to review and respond to it. Maybe that’s business as usual for city politics, but it certainly reeks of being unfair at best and at worst undermines the democratic process.

The AMFO seeks to impose a tax on every alcoholic drink sold in San Francisco. They’re calling it a “fee” in order to get around certain political and legal requirements that would make it harder to enact. Supporters of the AMFO continue to say it will amount to “a nickel a drink,” but while that may sound reasonable to many people, it’s nowhere near the truth. The fee itself is 7.6 cents per ounce of alcohol, meaning every single drink and drink package sold will require a separate calculation to determine the actual fee. More importantly, the AMFO will be levied at the wholesale level, which will then be marked up, usually twice. The fee will actually be around 50-75 cents per six-pack and anywhere from $0.75-$1.00 (or more) per pint. And it will be even higher on wine and spirits. The “nickel a drink” mantra is, quite simply, a lie to gain support from ordinary people who won’t examine the reality more closely.

Well yesterday — finally — the City and County of San Francisco released the nexus study, on Friday (which is where, it’s said, news goes to die, which is what they’re counting on, most likely). I had always been under the assumption that the study was supposed to be an impartial look at the impact and the direct link necessary to apply this type of fee. Apparently I was wrong, because the title of the study is The Cost of Alcohol to San Francisco: Analyses Supporting an Alcohol Mitigation Fee. So anything that does not support the AMFO was systematically ignored. There’s not one mention of any of the possible side effects, economic or otherwise that the AMFO will cause. It also means the city essentially spent a lot money for the Lewin Group to prove the case, with no thought whatsoever that it might be wrong or have unintended consequences. That’s your tax dollars. They don’t look at whether it was or wasn’t a good idea, they just started with the premise that it was and worked from there. It would be hard to imagine a worse way to represent the needs of all San Francisco residents. This is quite simply politicians deciding something, without a balanced perspective, and ramming it down the throats of everyone they were sworn to represent. What makes it worse, in this case, is that the impetus came from the Marin Institute, an organization that’s anti-alcohol to its core. The majority of people in San Francisco enjoy drinking responsibly and do so every day without causing the harm that the Marin Institute has accused them of nor do they place any burden on the city’s resources as is further alleged. But the neo-prohibitionists have whispered into the ear of at least one supervisor that there’s some money to be made, and here we are, the will of the people be damned once more.

As I wrote last week, the nexus study is required partly because of the Sinclair decision, a California Supreme Court case involving a similar type of fee for the potential harm caused by lead paint. To me the obvious difference between the two is that lead paint is bad for everybody, whereas not only is that not true for alcohol, but in fact the moderate consumption of alcohol has very real and tangible health benefits. Even without the benefits, most adults who drink responsibly are at the very least not going to emergency rooms, being arrested or otherwise taxing the city’s resources every time they go out for a beer with friends. I don’t doubt that there are such people, but they’re a very small minority and yet the city is willing to punish every single person who drinks and damage one of the few industries actually thriving in a weak economy.

But let’s look at the nexus study itself. At 68 pages, it’s a lot to digest and with the vote next week there’s little time to examine it. That it was released so late was undoubtedly by design, which is annoying, to say the least, and it’s impenetrably dense with lots of charts and exhibits, many that have almost nothing to do with the issue at hand, which is to show a direct “causal connection or nexus between the product and its adverse effects.”

I’ll try to point out as many discrepancies and failures of logic as I can — and of course take a look at the whole thing yourself — but please keep in mind that it’s not an impartial document.

First of all, the study doesn’t even appear to be trying to prove the required causal connection at all, but instead sets out from the premise that it’s just true, because they say it’s true. In the executive study:

The purpose of this study is to estimate a portion of the health-related economic costs of the measurable, direct effects of alcohol consumption to the City and County of San Francisco. These estimates will be used by the City to assess the public health impact of alcohol and inform policy surrounding an alcohol mitigation fee.

So I’d say that’s a pretty big problem right out of the gate. The study doesn’t even purport to do what it’s required to. It’s supposed to be used to “prove” the nexus of harm the ordinance alleges, but it simply states it as fact, with no proof and then goes on to estimate the numbers. To me, that’s the arrogance of the anti-alcohol community. They just assume their point of view is the only one, and figure that just saying so is enough. That your tax dollars were spent on such a farce should be troubling to any San Francisco resident who drinks responsibly.

The study alleges that “[a]ll of the programmatic cost items have a strong connection with alcohol use and high data accuracy, meaning that alcohol-related incidence was accurately identified and attributed.” But the only studies cited (to be fair, I haven’t had time to check them all) were done by biased parties. For example, here’s the first two I looked at. The first study heavily relied upon, The cost of alcohol in California was done in 2008 and sponsored by … wait for it … the Marin Institute. The second, Alcohol-Related Deaths and Hospitalizations by Race, Gender, and Age in California had two researchers, the first, Mandy Stahre, was from the University of Minnesota. The second lead researcher, Michele Simon was from … wait for it … the Marin Institute.

The bulk of the 68-page study is given over to how they estimate the costs, despite the fact that there’s no real attempt made at all to actually prove the direct causal connection or nexus between drinking alcohol and costing the city money. They just keep repeating that it’s true over and over again, presumably because their goal wasn’t even to make the required connection.

But even within their presumption of cause, they list costs that they claim are associated with alcohol use that are characterized as “high causation,” “medium causation,” and “medium/low causation.” Those are not direct causes, and they don’t even say they are, as the Sinclair decision requires. Some of the things listed in those categories are epilepsy and hepatitis, as if anyone who drinks will become epileptic or get hepatitis. It’s absurd. There are so many factors for any individual that may lead to these type of illnesses that it’s hardly reasonable to say it was alcohol that caused them. While the over-consumption of alcohol may be a contributing factor, it’s not remotely reasonable to use it to gin up the costs attributable to alcohol.

Using the same logic as the AMFO, you could apply it to virtually anything sold in San Francisco. For example, each year the City and County of San Francisco incurs costs resulting from the consumption of red meat. These include the costs of providing medical care for people with high blood pressure, treatment and prevention costs, choking, costs resulting from meat-related heart attacks, and the indirect costs associated with disability and diminished capacity. Therefore, all red meat should be taxed. You see the danger. Everything we do, consume, etc. has risks that can be attributed to it. But it’s the individuals who decide how they’ll use them, that is whether they’ll do so responsibly or not. And some people are more susceptible to harm then others, but we shouldn’t punish the people who can and do use the thing — in this case alcohol — responsibly.

The study then moves on to jail and even includes the salaries and fringe benefits of jail workers. Now let me ask a question. If alcohol were outlawed, would they shut down the jail? Of course not, the jail would be open regardless. Crimes will continue to be committed, the need for the city to provide jails has little, if any bearing, on whether alcohol is available. Trying to charge the alcohol itself for something stupid someone does after drinking it would be the same as levying a fee on gun makers and ammo companies. Yet most gun owners don’t commit crimes or kill people. But if a similar fee as the AMFO was imposed on them, everyone would have to pay more for a gun because of the minority that did use them in criminal activity. You think the NRA would let that pass without comment?

It’s also like saying that once someone has a few drinks, that personal responsibility no longer applies. At that point, the AMFO seems to suggest that people can no longer control their own actions and it’s the alcohol now at fault, as if anyone or everyone who drinks alcohol will become a criminal. They just can’t help themselves, ignoring, of course, every single person who does drink a few beers and isn’t arrested or hauled off to the emergency room — which is almost everyone, the vast majority.

The same applies to their next cost, the Fire Department, EMS services and other associated overheads costs. It’s the fault of the alcohol itself, not the individual decisions to have another drink. It doesn’t really matter how many charts of costs incurred by the city they present for these services, that’s their job. That’s what the services are there for. It’s why we all want them, in case someone we know or ourselves needs them. It’s unfortunate that there are people who don’t know when to stop drinking, but they should be responsible for that bad decision, and it shouldn’t be up to the rest of us to be punished for their stupidity. Every person in San Francisco, the state of California and the U.S. already pays for those services through the many taxes we already pay. To say that people who drink have to pay a little bit more just because they choose to drink alcohol — which is legal, I shouldn’t have to say — is ludicrous.

Pages 26 to 31 are devoted to how the fee is calculated. If it takes six pages to lay that out, I’d have to say it may be too complex a scheme. It’s the first time I know it’s been tried, and it looks to be an administrative nightmare, not that the folks pushing this care how onerous any part of it is for their avowed enemies. The city cares about money and the neo-prohibitionists care about doing anything they can to punish and hurt alcohol. As they’ve publicly stated — and even commented directly on this blog — they’re supposedly after the big multi-national alcohol companies, though it doesn’t seem to bother them that they’re also dragging down every small, family owned craft brewer and small winery in California. There are over 225 small breweries and probably even more wineries, not to mention micro-distilleries. They claim not to be “after” them, but the AMFO harms them equally, and possibly even more so since they’re so small it will be harder for them to absorb the fee than it may be for the bigger companies.

Next, there’s an appendix of alleged attributable causes, each with their own AAF, or Alcohol-Attributable Fraction. But the AAF goes completely against the very idea of the nexus study, whose point you may recall was that it is required to show a direct causal connection. What it shows instead, that a percentage of people who drink alcohol may contract a particular disease. That’s not a direct nexus. It’s risk. Adults are free to take those risks. It includes things like accidental poisoning, by people who got drunk and accidentally drank Drano. That’s tragic, but it’s hardly the fault of the alcohol. Same deal with suicide. If your life is so bad that you want to kill yourself and you drink before doing so, is it not obvious that the root causes of the suicide are far more deeply in that person’s psyche than binge drinking? A few drinks, hell even a lot of drinks, is not going to make most people off themselves.

It just goes on from there, blaming alcohol for the homeless, homeless outreach programs, emergency services, etc. as if being homeless is directly attributable to drinking. Homeless people I’d wager drink because they’re homeless and their lives suck and our society does not really help them. But rather than acknowledge a huge glaring societal problem, it’s easier to just blame the alcohol.

Finally, at page 65 (4 pages from the end) in the section Attribution by Type of Beverage and Point of Sale they grudgingly mention that there are health benefits, at least for wine and spirits, none are offered for beer. And the only two even mentioned is that drinking wine decreases cardiovascular risk and whisky — get this — increased tooth fracture resistance. That’s right whisky will make it harder to break your tooth when you fall on your face. That’s apparently it’s only positive.

Despite the fact that they quote both the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the USDA’s Report on the Dietary Guidelines 2010 (which I also recently reported on), they completely ignored the many, many cited studies in the new report on the dietary guidelines that show many positive correlations between all alcohol — beer, wine and spirits — when consumed responsibly and in moderation. In fact , the NIAAA recommended changing the standard for moderate drinking from a daily one to a weekly standard and stating that the number of safe drinks per day could effectively be doubled so long as the maximum per week was not exceeded.

But perhaps the most glaring omission was the meta-study they did on the effects of moderate drinking on total mortality, meaning how does responsible drinking do in creating a more or less healthy lifestyle. Predictably, it was found that a majority, if not all, of the studies examined show a positive correlation between moderate drinking and living longer and being more healthy.

Total Mortality. In most Western countries where chronic diseases such as CHD, cancer, stroke and diabetes are the primary causes of death, results from large epidemiological studies consistently show that alcohol has a favorable association with total mortality especially among middle age and older men and women. A recent updated meta-analysis of all-cause mortality demonstrated an inverse association between moderate drinking and total mortality (Di Castelnuovo, 2006). The relative risk of all-cause mortality associated with moderate drinking was approximately 0.80. The J-shaped curve, with the lowest mortality risk for men and women at the average level of one to two drinks per day, is likely due to the protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on CHD, diabetes and ischemic stroke as summarized in this chapter.

In other words, you’ll be healthier if you have one or two beers a day. Isn’t it therefore reckless for the city of San Francisco to make it more difficult for people to live their lives in a way that has been shown to make them healthier? The meta-study shows a direct causal connection between moderate drinking and living longer and more healthy, the opposite nexus that is needed to legally impose the fee.

The remaining three pages are taken up with biased studies that show exactly what the city and the Marin Institute wants to show and ignores anything that doesn’t fit their world view. In other words, the study is a sham. It’s propaganda. It’s not in anyway balanced, and it doesn’t even try to be, even though an honest assessment would actually be in the best interests of the people who live (and pay taxes) in San Francisco.

It completely ignores any economic harm and the loss of jobs that will undoubtedly occur if less people are visiting and drinking in San Francisco. It completely ignores any of the potential harm it will cause. To me, that’s a travesty. Let’s at least have an honest debate. Like the one-sided C.W. Nevius column in the Chronicle, the mainstream and local media has been amazingly uncritical and supportive of the AMFO, swallowing whole the propaganda of the anti-alcohol fee while ignoring nearly completely any serious opposition to it.

If you oppose the AMFO — and frankly you should, especially if you drink responsibly in San Francisco — visit SaveMyCaJob for details on how you can help. But do it quickly, because the vote is this coming Wednesday, July 14.

Fight the Fee!

UPDATE 7.12: I just learned that the hearing for a vote on the AMFO, scheduled for July 14, has been postponed until July 28, though the decision had nothing to do with allowing more time for people to review the nexus study.

Don’t Let Facts Get In Your Way

July 7, 2010 By Jay Brooks

marin-institute
Regular Bulletin readers know how I feel about the Marin Institute. They style themselves as a “watchdog” group but in reality they’re a run of the mill anti-alcohol, neo-prohibitionist group. I often accuse them of going to great lengths to distort facts or manufacture reality to further their cause, taking an ends justify the means approach to everything they do. The “charge for harm” nonsense they’re trying to foist on San Francisco is a prime example, but today witnessed an even clearer example of how far they’ll go in bending reality to their will.

The USDA has released their updated version of the Dietary Guidelines For Americans 2010, where they looked at more recent research regarding food and beverages of all kinds, updating the 2005 edition (it’s regularly updated every five years). Well, this is bad news for the anti-alcohol folks, because recent science has been revealing more and more health benefits for the moderate consumption of alcohol, and so not surprisingly, that’s what is reflected in the new guidelines. But the Marin Institute has never been one to let facts stand in their way, and so they’ve wasted no time in criticizing the report’s findings and asking their unquestioning faithful to do likewise, calling the whole thing “dangerous” and “unscientific,” despite the fact that the whole report is based on science and each study relied upon is cited in the bibliography. It’s laughable that they’d call it “unscientific” while they themselves just shout it down and spread propaganda and utterly nonfactual claims about why they don’t like its conclusions. To them, it’s only science if they agree with the results. To me, that’s far more dangerous than anything in the report.

So what does this dangerous report say? It’s Chapter 7 that tackles alcohol and it’s fairly balanced from my point of view, and probably would be for any reasonable person. It talks about both the risks of over-consumption and the benefits of moderate drinking. It’s quite cautious in making any affirmative recommendations. There were also some interesting statistics. For example, I’d often heard that about a third of adults don’t drink alcohol, but a recent survey revealed that 76% of men and 65% of women had consumed alcohol in the past year. Most compelling was the decision to change the definition of moderate drinking from a daily standard to a weekly one, and to raise the daily recommendations from 2/1 (men/women) to 4/3.

The recent release of Rethinking Drinking by the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), provides guidelines that are consistent, in part, with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, but also add additional guidance on weekly patterns of consumption. This NIAAA booklet, which is also designed to help individuals drink less if they are heavy or “at risk drinkers,” defines “low-risk” drinking as no more than 14 drinks a week for men and 7 drinks a week for women with no more than 4 drinks on any given day for men and 3 drinks a day for women (NIAAA, 2009).
The 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) largely agreed with this definition of moderation from the NIAAA because it implied that consumption was based on daily intake averaged over the week and also because the NIAAA guideline was generally consistent with the recommendation from the 2005 Dietary Guidelines.

Not surprisingly, this caused the Marin Institute to go apoplectic. Of course, the definition of “binge drinking” has been five drinks in a single session, which is laughingly absurd, especially so now in light of four being considered within the bounds of moderation. The five-drink-standard branded every single person who attends a five-course beer dinner a binge drinker, which is utter nonsense.

dietary-guidelines-2010

The Dietary Guidelines also asked some interesting questions about the effects of moderate drinking, and reports some findings that the anti-alcohol groups will have a hard time dismissing, and in fact any rebuttal of them is so far missing from their complaints. For example:

What is the Relationship between Alcohol Intake and Cognitive Decline with Age?
Conclusion
Moderate evidence suggests that compared to non-drinkers, individuals who drink moderately have a slower cognitive decline with age. Although limited, evidence suggests that heavy or binge drinking is detrimental to age-related cognitive decline.
Implications
Alcohol, when consumed in moderation, did not quicken the pace of age-related loss of cognitive function. In most studies, it was just the opposite—moderate alcohol consumption, when part of a healthy diet and physical activity program, appeared to help to keep cognitive function intact with age.

They also did a meta-study on the effects of moderate drinking on total mortality, meaning how does responsible drinking do in creating a more or less healthy lifestyle. Predictably, it was found that a majority, if not all, of the studies examined show a positive correlation between moderate drinking and living longer and being more healthy.

Total Mortality. In most Western countries where chronic diseases such as CHD, cancer, stroke and diabetes are the primary causes of death, results from large epidemiological studies consistently show that alcohol has a favorable association with total mortality especially among middle age and older men and women. A recent updated meta-analysis of all-cause mortality demonstrated an inverse association between moderate drinking and total mortality (Di Castelnuovo, 2006). The relative risk of all-cause mortality associated with moderate drinking was approximately 0.80. The J-shaped curve, with the lowest mortality risk for men and women at the average level of one to two drinks per day, is likely due to the protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on CHD, diabetes and ischemic stroke as summarized in this chapter.

In other words, you’ll be healthier if you have one or two beers a day. But woe be to any brewery that might think to actually suggest that to a potential customer. That’s where the neo-prohibitionists are most worried. In the conclusion to their comments to the new dietary guidelines, the Marin Institute are very “concerned.” Here are some excerpts of their worrying, and my open letter response as to why they’re on the train to loony town.

There is no public health organization that recommends starting to drink alcohol for abstainers, or drinking more alcohol for current drinkers, as either a preventive behavior to address specific medical problems, or as a population-level primary prevention strategy.

Perhaps not, but there should be. The only reason there isn’t, is because organizations like the Marin Institute would treat such a recommendation as a declaration of war. Even though the facts indicate that moderate drinking is healthier than abstaining, nobody would dare to state the obvious conclusion to draw from that just because of how they’d react, in other words fear is the reason, not common sense.

Indeed, federal, state, local and community public health agencies, including Marin Institute, work tirelessly to address the tremendous physical, social, and economic harm caused by alcohol. Yet the Report sounds as if drinking alcohol is not only a suggested therapeutic option to discuss with one’s doctor, but also a general recommendation for all Americans to consider as part of an overall wellness plan.

It “sounds as if drinking alcohol is a therapeutic option” because it is. Alcohol does not cause the harm, too much alcohol may cause harm, but moderate consumption is beneficial. You just continuing to say the opposite of what’s true doesn’t make it any less so.

The Committee must be aware that the Report’s messages about alcohol consumption will be misinterpreted by the powerful corporations and trade organizations that sell and promote alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry has a long history of exploiting the Dietary Guidelines for their benefit, and the suggestions contained in the Report lend themselves to further misuse. We are especially concerned that despite the Report’s caveats, the industry will use the new recommendations to promote alcohol consumption and increased consumption.

Don’t worry, you’re safe. Maybe you should relax and enjoy a frosty beverage; perhaps I could suggest a beer? You must think the alcohol companies are pretty stupid, despite how shrewd you usually paint them. With you “watchdogging” them, there’s no way any alcohol company could launch a campaign suggesting people start drinking or drinking more, even though the evidence points to the fact that it wouldn’t be a bad idea. At any rate, thanks to your predecessors after prohibition, the advertising guidelines already expressly forbid health claims, so as usual you’re worrying about nothing.

We also ask that the Committee revise the Report and subsequent Guidelines to send a much more cautionary, evidence-based message regarding alcohol consumption to the public. Finally, we recommend that the new Guidelines maintain the formulation of 2/1 per-day consumption of alcohol. We urge you to err on the side of caution when recommending safe alcohol consumption levels and behaviors to improve health and prevent harm.

Err on the side of caution? Let’s see, they reviewed the science and came to a conclusion you didn’t like. That’s not an error or not being cautious, it’s simply letting facts dictate what makes sense in terms of a policy of what’s best for the average person.

But your whole posturing, tantrum-filled press release and comments speak volumes about your real intentions. While an average person might look at those findings and think to themselves, “great, it’s good to be informed and know how eating and drinking certain things will affect me. Now I can make an informed decision on how to live my life.” But you look at that and instead cry, “I don’t like those finding, they must be wrong. There’s science behind it, but I don’t like the conclusions so the science must be wrong. I don’t like the recommendations, so they must be “dangerous.”

I know it’s nearly impossible for the Marin Institute or any similar organization to have an open mind and be reasonable about these sorts of things. Fanaticism is rarely compatible with reason or common sense. But I continue to marvel at how any organization who never misses an opportunity to call an alcohol company on not being truthful can themselves be so fast and loose with the truth. Lying to keep someone else truthful (or at least for a cause you believe in) seems completely immoral, or at least amoral, to me. If the facts are contrary to your point of view, maybe it’s your point of view that’s wrong? Maybe it’s time to question your assumptions? I know that’s not going to happen, but not letting the facts get in your way by just ignoring them or pretending they don’t exist or are wrong isn’t going to fool anybody except the people who you’ve hoodwinked already. And maybe that’s their point in the end, maybe it’s just about keeping the faithful faithful by telling them what they want to hear and appearing to fight their absurd fight. But I sure wish they’d let the facts get in their way.

Fight The Fee

July 6, 2010 By Jay Brooks

cahj
If you read my rebuttal to San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius support of the proposed fee on alcohol in the city, then perhaps you recall that he interviewed the California Alliance of Hospitality Workers so he could appear to show both sides of the argument. It was not really in any way balanced, and in fact I think he used them as a straw man, though he did so in a way that I believe was incorrect at any rate.

Happily, the California Alliance of Hospitality Workers is fighting back, and is trying to get people to contact their local supervisor in San Francisco to have city residents ask their politicians to oppose the proposed fee. The e-mail to use is Board.of.Supervisors@sfgov.org. If you live in San Francisco and drink alcohol in moderation and responsibly, please contact your supervisor and ask him or her to oppose the ordinance.

cal-alliance-hjobs

You can also see their response to the proposed ordinance, Supervisors’ Short-Sighted Proposal to Tax Alcohol Will Hurt Hard-Working San Franciscans. They’ve also set up a Facebook page.

One additional important fact that they mention is that the required Nexus Study has still not been filed or made public. With the hearing to vote on the proposed ordinance a week away — July 14 — at the very least that’s stacking the deck and at the worst is complete bullshit.

Here’s just a few more reasons why this tax is unfair, particularly to craft beer:

This legislation taxes beer by alcohol strength, putting a huge and cumbersome burden on brewpubs, self-distributing small brewers and wholesalers because each and every beer is taxed at a different rate.
Craft brewers are not part of the problem. Craft beer is priced high and is a product of quality, not quantity. Craft beer drinkers do not abuse their beverages.
With the “margin chain” and price point consideration, the tax will be much higher than five cents a drink. At retail off-premise, the increase will be about 50-75 cents a six-pack and on premise about 75 cents to a dollar per pint.
Brewers are already heavily taxed. Small brewers already pay a state and a federal excise tax in addition to all other business and sales taxes. Combined, about 40-44% of the cost of a beer already goes to taxes.
Higher drink prices in a singular market such as San Francisco will lead consumers to not come into the City for dining and entertainment.
Higher taxes will lead to lost jobs, off-setting the new tax.
The proposed tax would hinder the ability of craft brewers in the City to grow, employ more people and positively contribute to City’s economic recovery.
Higher taxes will mean higher prices which means lower sales. If this tax in imposed, sales will decrease and craft brewers will not be able to sustain the ability to continue full employment or continue to invest in our business and community.

Errors of Opinion

July 2, 2010 By Jay Brooks

san-francisco
I got an e-mail a couple of days ago from San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius asking for my perspective on the proposed alcohol fee for his next column. He indicated he knew my position and disclosed that he was “in favor” of it. He also added this. “But due diligence says we need to represent both sides.” Reading that, I felt that he wasn’t really prepared to listen to anything I might say, but simply felt he had to talk to someone from the opposition so the paper could keep the illusion of being “fair and balanced.” So I wrote him back and said so, about an hour or so later.

I mean no disrespect and I don’t mean to criticize, but it sounds like you want to talk to me and get my opinion just because you have to, which is never the best way to begin a conversation, if I may be so bold as to say so. We may both be entrenched in our opinions but I look forward to giving you my side of the issue and having a lively discussion.

He wrote me back and thanked me for my time, but told me he’d found an alternative for his due diligence.

His column was published yesterday, and was titled Supervisor’s fee on alcohol a terrific idea, hardly conveying even a whiff of impartiality. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a column after all, he’s not writing a report on the proposed ordinance. Nevius’ opinion is his stock in trade, it’s why he has a job. I’m not convinced that all reporting should give equal weight to both sides, and columnists especially are more free to express their own opinions. In the days when most towns had two newspapers, bias was nakedly on display. You bought the paper that most closely reflected your point of view. Bias is inevitable, at least to some degree. Journalists are human, after all, and even if the writing manages to mask that fact, the way the story is framed, structured and even the headline chosen all can convey bias to the observant reader.

And for many stories, that’s not a problem. If you’re doing a story on the roundness of the Earth, you shouldn’t have to make sure the Flat Earth Society is represented. Not every story on the Holocaust needs a comment from some wingnut who doesn’t believe it really happened. But many stories, especially those that involve creating public policy that effects everyone, should have an even higher standard of informing the public about both sides. Unfortunately, in those circumstances — when it’s most important — is when it most often doesn’t happen.

Case in point is the proposed alcohol fee ordinance. I think that this issue is one of enough importance that both sides should get an opportunity to voice their points of view equally, but so far every story I’ve seen in the mainstream and local media is completely lopsided, presenting only the side of the Marin Institute, who’s been pushing this scheme for some time now, and have finally gotten some traction with San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos. The Marin Institute, despite their protestations to the contrary, is an anti-alcohol group. In their rhetoric they claim otherwise, but it in their actions it’s completely obvious.

So while I don’t begrudge C.W. Nevius his opinions, I think they are based on propaganda and misinformation, since that’s virtually the only information out there. He’s made up his mind, and it’s obvious my arguments fall on deaf ears, since he’s read at least some of what I’ve written on the subject and still believes what he does. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to point out why I think his opinions are based on false assumptions and errors, mostly the ones that come from the Marin Institute.

So if you haven’t already, go ahead and read Supervisor’s fee on alcohol a terrific idea. It’s not too long. I’ll wait here. …. Done, okay, let’s continue.

He begins with the assumption, that “Supervisor John Avalos is as progressive as they come, but he’s crafted a terrific proposal.” I don’t know if he’s read it, but it’s a mess of vagueness, undefined processes and unanswered questions. It’s nothing if not poorly written. But perhaps most importantly, Avalos didn’t “craft” it, the Marin institute spoon fed it to him. Their propagandist language is all over the ordinance. Just compare their press release and what’s written on their website to the proposed ordinance and you can’t help but realize that fact.

Next up: “It is focused on a serious problem in the city, it targets very real costs, and it makes specific recommendations that will make a positive difference.” I’m sure there are problem drinkers in San Francisco, but has anyone seen any statistics that support how “serious” the problem really is? I haven’t. None have been cited in connection with this ordinance. It’s just stated and everybody seems to believe it. Show me the numbers, and let’s have them be from a neutral source for a change. The Nexus Study that’s required for the ordinance has not been made public yet, as far as I know. And that means nobody can really say that the ordinance “will make a positive difference” with any certainty. People can believe that, but until it’s put into place, it’s merely conjecture. I don’t believe it will, and I don’t think a fair Nexus Study will predict the effect will be positive. But that aside, even if there are people who abuse alcohol (as I’m sure there are) it’s still not everyone who drinks. Why is punishing the majority of drinkers who do so safely and responsibly so acceptable?

“Avalos is proposing a ‘charge for harm’ fee on liquor wholesalers and distributors that could amount to as much as a nickel a drink in San Francisco.” Okay, the “charge for harm” phrase is all Marin Institute. It’s propaganda and it’s absurd. As the Pillsbury Tax Page points out, “virtually every industry can be found to place some type of burden on society.” Should bullet manufacturers and gun makers have a “fee” imposed on them because of every crime that’s committed using a gun, including any trips to the hospital from gunshot wounds? Should every heart attack victim have the burden on emergency rooms mitigated by fees on red meat and other foods that increase the risk of heart attacks? It’s a slippery slope; where do you stop? Why is alcohol the only one targeted for this notion of “charge for harm.”

Then’s there the statement that the fee will be “as much as a nickel a drink.” He’s obviously not done the math. It will be different for each kind of alcohol and each package it comes in. A nickel is the low end of the spectrum, in many cases it will be much more than a nickel. And he’s also failing to recognize that because the fee will be imposed on “wholesalers and distributors” that it will be marked up, in some cases twice, meaning it will be more than five cents across the board.

Next it’s the “city’s ambulance and fire services, clogging San Francisco General Hospital’s emergency room, and using up valuable resources.” First of all, that’s what the resources are there for, but that aside, isn’t that a failure of our health care system? It isn’t the alcohol company’s fault if people abuse it and act irresponsibly. Not everyone who drinks alcohol is a burden on the system. The vast majority are not using up the city’s “valuable resources.” But they’ll have to pay just the same.

And here’s his alternative source for due diligence so he could appear to cover both sides of the issue.

“A tax is a tax, is a tax, is a tax,” said Matt Klink, spokesman for the California Alliance for Hospitality Jobs. “The restaurant and hotel industries are already getting pummeled in San Francisco because of the downturn in the economy. This would put San Francisco businesses at a significant disadvantage.”

Actually, it’s simply a straw man. He basically used that quote just to dismiss it, knock it down, without really addressing the very real concerns of any opposition. But, unfortunately, his dismissal is incorrect, or at least ignores important facts. Nevius argues that the concerns of the California Alliance for Hospitality Jobs are a “stretch” because “Avalos’ bill only targets wholesalers and large distributors, not restaurants or hotels.” First of all, that it “only targets wholesalers and large distributors” may itself be a stretch, because the ordinance in its incompleteness fails to address how fees will be collected from self-distributing companies outside the city and also distributors who sell to businesses in San Francisco but who themselves are outside the jurisdiction of the city. But more importantly, Nevius again fails to take into account that because the fees are imposed on the distributor, they’ll be marked up. Then the restaurant and hotels that he so blithely dismisses will also mark up what they buy from the wholesaler based on the new, higher price that includes the fee. That will mean San Francisco will have the highest price booze in the state, bar none. If he thinks that’s not going to effect business — especially convention business — when there are cheaper alternatives across the bridges, in the East Bay and South Bay particularly, then he’s seriously divorced from reality.

He’s then turns his thinking over to the Marin Institute, who he quotes. “Most alcohol production is controlled and profited by corporations based in Europe,” said Bruce Lee Livingston of the Marin Institute, an alcohol watchdog agency. “This fee is trivial to San Francisco consumers and negligible to businesses.” Okay, for the millionth time, so what? An unfair fee is rendered fair because the companies are headquartered outside the U.S.? Such jingoism reminds me of the people who used to insist people buy American cars because (say it with a hick accent) them foreign ones was bad for GM and the other U.S. car companies, ignoring the fact that most employed thousands of American employees along with countless indirect businesses created for parts, sales, repairs, and on and on. Take a look at Beer Serves America to get an idea of how just beer adds jobs to the U.S. economy, not including wine and spirits. It’s a lot. And saying it’s acceptable to further tax an entire industry just because the major players are owned by multinationals seems ludicrous to me.

But even conceding that the two biggest beer companies are not primarily owned by U.S. shareholders, that still ignores over 120 small California breweries that are most definitely owned by Americans, and the majority are owned by American families. Add to that all the other American craft breweries who sell their beer in California. There are over 1,500 breweries in the U.S. today and all but two of them are owned by Americans. But the Marin Institute thinks it’s okay to target them too. Talk about collateral damage. Then there’s how many small wineries in California? Small micro-distilleries? American-owned restaurants and bars and liquor stores? Doesn’t matter, f@%k ’em all.

Nevius concludes that “[a]ll in all this is a great idea” and the fee ordinance is a “thoughtful, reasonable proposal.” How he can come to that conclusion is beyond me.

He also never addresses the fact that because the people who supposedly cause all this harm represent only a tiny fraction of adults who legally drink alcohol, the ordinance effectively punishes the majority of drinkers who consume alcohol responsibly. So you and me have to pay more for a beer because some other yahoo couldn’t handle his drink and couldn’t be bothered to get his own health insurance. How is that fair, could someone please explain? That personal responsibility is completely ignored is also more than a little troubling. People should be responsible for their actions. But let’s not blame them, let’s instead go after the people who make the alcohol, or distribute the alcohol, or sell the alcohol. Let’s tax them more and risk more loss of jobs and revenue in a shaky economy. Let’s not try to build a more effective mass transit system so people can actually get around safely without a car. That might help ameliorate problems caused by people who drink too much. Let’s also continue to ignore the fact that alcohol is already the most heavily taxed substance sold in America. Without factoring in this new fee, of the cost of a beer, fully 44% is for taxes of one kind or another. According to a 2005 study by Global Insight and the Parthenon Group, “the total tax burden [on beer alone] adds up to nearly 70% more than the average amount of tax paid in the U.S. on all other purchases. That represents well above $10 billion in extra taxes paid on beer.” You can assume it’s as much or more on wine and spirits, too.

The Marin Institute, and similar neo-prohibitionist groups, all over the country are seizing on the poor state of our economy to further their agenda and persuade politicians that they can raise money by going after alcohol. It has nothing to do with taxes for them and in every instance I know of it comes nowhere close to fixing budget deficits even though that’s how it’s always sold. Alcohol is a handy target because it’s been so demonized throughout our history. Without knowing the facts, people accept that drinking is evil and that it’s okay to punish people who drink because they’re committing a sin anyway. It sounds crazy, but people really still believe that. But alcohol also has a myriad of health benefits and in moderation is part of a more enjoyable and healthier lifestyle, both physically and mentally.

There’s no doubt that the economic problems being faced by governments at all levels, from the federal to the local, are serious and need to be fixed. But taxing — yes, taxing — one of the few industries holding its own and keeping people employed and paying its already hefty taxes cannot be the right answer. It targets the wrong people, it punishes the innocent indiscriminately, it won’t fix the problem it’s purported to fix and it’s done for all the wrong reasons. What about that sounds like “a terrific idea.”

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