Pubdate: Mon, 28 Jun 1999
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 1999 San Francisco Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/
Author: HARRY D. FISHER

ARROGANT LOBBY

Editor -- Tom Dalldorf, the publisher of the Celebrator Beer News, mounts a
vigorous defense of his rice bowl in his June 20 letter to the editor.
According to him, the ``wrong message'' would be to include warnings against
the use of alcohol in the government's $195 million media anti-drug blitz.
Rather, according to him, the alcohol problem should be addressed apart from
street drugs.

The brazenness and transparency of the alcohol lobby is stunning in its
arrogance.

Here are the purveyors of a drug that causes more illness and death than all
the illicit drugs combined, desperately trying to avoid the fallout from the
anti-drug campaign.

For all the misery caused by alcohol, the highway deaths, the spousal and
child abuse committed under its influence, the alcohol lobbyists try to make
it seem as if their product, which makes them rich, is somehow better than
illicit drugs by virtue of the fact that ``alcoholic beverages are enjoyed
in this country (and indeed around most of the civilized world) by many
millions of people,'' as Dalldorf puts it.

In addition, he accuses those who disagree with the liquor lobby neo-
prohibitionists, since they represent a threat to his income from selling
intoxicants. Such is the message from the Celebrator Beer News. Hardly a
cause for celebration. The hypocrisy reeks like a rotten fish.

HARRY D. FISHER, Woodland Hills

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