Pubdate: Sun, 28 Sep 2003
Source: Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
Copyright: 2003, Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/371
Author: John Doyle
Note: John Doyle is executive director for the American Beverage Institute, 
a Washington, D.C.-based restaurant trade association. To learn more, visit 
www.ABIonline.org.

Speakout

A RETURN TO PROHIBITION, DRIP BY DRIP

Seventy years ago today, Colorado voted to ratify the 21st Amendment, 
marking an important milestone on the road to ending Prohibition 
nationwide. But a subtler and more insidious movement is now using a 
back-door approach to delegitimize social drinking. Some people call it 
"Prohibition drip by drip." This movement is eerily similar to the movement 
that gave us Prohibition. Like the early 20th century movement, it is well 
organized, it is self-righteous and it has sympathetic ears in the media. 
And considering that nearly all of its supporters seem to be bankrolled in 
some way by the $8 billion Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, it's even better 
funded than its pre-Jazz Age forebear.

The foundation has contributed more than $265 million in the last five 
years to notable anti-alcohol organizations, which have used that money to 
fund "studies," seminars, media campaigns, and community outreach programs 
that attack adult beverage consumption in various ways. These 
multimillion-dollar checks have financed an army of like-minded advocacy, 
activist, grass-roots, and "research" organizations - all aimed at reducing 
even responsible consumption.

The collective result is a simultaneous, multipronged offensive on the way 
adult beverages are perceived, distributed, sold, and consumed - an assault 
designed not to address product abuse but simply to get everyone to drink 
less. At the recent "Alcohol Policy Conference XIII," a modern 
prohibitionist conference underwritten by the foundation, activists 
endorsed an alcohol rationing system, a government monopoly on adult 
beverage distribution, a total advertising ban, and zoning ordinances to 
restrict the number and location of "alcohol outlets" - which they define 
as including restaurants.

Anti-alcohol organizations justify these draconian measures with a number 
of foundation-funded "studies" that bizarrely (and incorrectly) conclude 
that alcohol abuse is endemic. Moreover, these reports are nearly unanimous 
in their calls for everyone to reduce their consumption of adult beverages 
in order to address underage drinking.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving - which gets millions from the foundation - 
is at the forefront of the movement to marginalize social drinking by 
terrorizing responsible adults who dare to have a drink while dining out. 
This campaign results from a subtle but significant shift in MADD's 
strategy in the last few years. MADD is now targeting any adult who drinks 
before driving - no matter how responsibly - by calling for mandatory 
nationwide roadblocks to get people "to drink less." MADD has transformed 
its mission from fighting drunk driving to frightening and harassing 
responsible adults.

Just last week, a National Academy of Sciences panel, commissioned by 
Congress to find strategies to reduce underage drinking, ignored its 
congressional mandate and instead presented policies designed to reduce the 
adult consumption of adult beverages.

"Efforts to reduce underage drinking," they wrote, "need to focus on 
adults." After 15 months and $500,000 in taxpayer funds, the panel endorsed 
such latter-day prohibitionist policies as higher alcohol taxes, mandatory 
roadblocks and zoning restrictions of restaurants, taverns and liquor stores.

The academy panel's decision to target the 100 million American adults who 
drink responsibly is hardly surprising, given the association of so many of 
the panelists with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Eight of the 12 
panelists have professional ties to it. Seven panelists have publicly 
endorsed higher taxes or other restrictions on adult beverages outside of 
their role on the panel.

The panelists include a foundation consultant who has stated that alcohol 
companies are "killing us softly" and that "they steal our heroes, holidays 
and values in order to sell booze." Another panelist, who has received up 
to $275,000 in foundation funds, is on record claiming, "current 
\[alcohol\] excise taxes are too low, both nationally and in every state."

Yet another panelist - also a recipient of foundation largess - has run ads 
comparing beer to heroin and other illegal drugs.

In many ways, the National Academy of Sciences' "roadmap to prohibition" 
can be viewed as the cumulative result of millions of dollars of 
expenditures and years of work by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Constitutional prohibition has been universally acknowledged as a failure. 
Attempts to engineer personal behavior via government control don't work. 
So the modern prohibitionists are seeking to establish cultural prohibition 
by classifying adult beverages as an illicit drug that is unacceptable in 
general society.

And that's how it all started the first time.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth