Radley Balko of the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, has written a policy analysis paper detailing the new prohibitionist agenda: higher alcohol taxes, tougher licensing and zoning requirements, and restrictions on advertising, among other measures.
The report, "Back Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking," can be found on Cato's website at
Paul Ruschmann
Travel Editor, "All About Beer" Magazine Creator of
snipped-for-privacy@paulruschmann.com (Paul Ruschmann) nattered on thusnews: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:
Gee sounds like tobacco "policy"...
Don't doubt it. There was a book I came across in other research that laid out a very similar anti-booze agenda...from 1967. A lot of what THAT book talked about has already come true: tougher drunk-driving laws and a stigmatization of alcohol as a "drug," control of sources (keg laws), and an increase of the legal drinking age. They're out there working ALL THE TIME. That's how Prohibition got through in the first place.
There are two large differences between then and today. First, we have the experience of prohibition as a failed policy. Second, the lobby that would rise up against a genuine prohibition bill would start with brewers, vintners, and distillers, and would include the restaurant and hotel lobbies since alcohol is such a high profit item for them. It would be interesting to see the difference in the amount of money given by Anheuser-Busch to fight the Volstead Act and how much they would put up today to save their multibillion dollar business.
Tom W
Yeah, but...
First, the experience of Prohibition as a failed policy means nothing -- witness the continued War on Drugs. Read histories of Prohibition, read histories and current accounts of the War on Drugs; the similarities are nothing short of astonishing: use of the Coast Guard and the military, widespread breaking of the law by otherwise law-abiding citizens, involvement of organized crime, violation of civil liberties, the continuing demand for the product in the face of expense, inconvenience, and illegality. Neo-Prohibitionists do not intend to make it happen again the same way, they have digested the lessons of that failed experiment and have other plans. They are attacking through health issues, 'control of access,' taxes, and stigmatization. They are looking for de facto Prohibition, not de jure.
Second, I wouldn't be surprised to see the multi-billion dollar businesses line up to cooperate. They're scared to fight, and their marketers will scare them further.
Learn to homebrew NOW.
--NPD
Alcoholic beverages, esp. beer and wine, have food and cultural values that tobacco and drugs do not. Every study touting the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption gets wide play in the media in order to counter the notion that "alcohol is just another drug." Counter prohibition forces are active but they aren't as shrill as the neos.
I have heard many times that restaurants make their profit from the bar and wine price markup. I assume that hotel bars and minibars are a lucrative profit center for the hotels. An effective de facto prohibition would seriously hurt the profit margins of these two businesses and they would either have to replace the revenues or face closing. Of course, the bars will have to close also. Cities and states would have to face the loss of tax revenue from losing all of those businesses. God knows what would happen to US tourism and border policy when there is an explosion in the number of tourists going to Niagara Falls, Windsor, Vancouver, Tijuana, Juarez, etc.
On top of all that, I just can't see the political fight in California if the grape growers and vintners (especially the boutique wineries owned by people who can make substantial campaign contributions) are to be told that they have to cease their activity for the public good. People might dream of a new prohibition and even get their dreams published, but implementing them as public policy seems farfetched.
Tom W
"Food and cultural values" are in the eye of the beholder. The food value of beer and wine is easily tossed aside by nanny-staters, I see it in the newspapers frequently. Nutritionists and doctors make pronouncements that alcohol beverages are "empty calories," that "impariment begins with the first drink," and who stands up to them? No one. Reporters repeat them, and the ATTTB enforces policy that makes the nutritional information on beer and wine taboo. Cultural value? For every positive cultural attribute beer, wine, and spirits have, there is a negative one; why do you think they call them "winos?" Counter-prohibition forces fight a reactive battle, and they (like you, I'm afraid) see all the good, thoughtful arguments on their side, not realizing that the battle will not be fought on rational grounds, but on appeals to emotion, just like the first Prohibition battles were fought.
And "alcohol is a drug" is a STRONG idea. They teach my children that idea in school, they say it in PSAs. I hear many pro-alcohol folks admit the statement as truth, then seek to weaken it by saying alcohol is at least a LEGAL drug. Stupid. If alcohol is a drug, so is caffeine, so is aspirin, so is theophylleine... That is precisely the kind of thing that needs to be countered, and the media is not giving it wide play in order to counter anything, they give it wide play because controversy sells almost as many papers as funny stories about booze.
Like the stiffer drunk driving laws have? Bar business has been hurt by the
0.08 BAC laws. I'm not saying it's a bad thing (because you CAN'T; drunk driving is dangerous and bad -- that's why increasingly stiffer drunk driving laws are a perfect way to develop de facto Prohibition), but people are drinking less in bars. Bar owners are taking the hit and looking for other profit centers. Heard about the raids in Northern Virginia this past fall? Police officers went into bars and arrested people for public drunkenness. In a bar. People who'd had two or three drinks. There was a public outcry, but the police were unrepentant.ALL of this happened when the Volstead Act went through. Taxes went to hell, businesses closed, and illegal businesses skyrocketed (which of course sent the taxes further into a spiral). People went to booze boats three miles off-shore, people broke the law, people made their own. And every cost, every inconvenience, every danger was considered to be well worth ridding the country of the booze trade, and the saloon, and the drunk.
The Dry forces counted 3/4 of Congress in their corner in the mid-1920s, on both sides of the aisle. Prohibition was bad for business and great for crime, and it was still strongly supported. Besides, wine owners will find a way: exports, sacramental wine, grape juice (with the warnings about keeping yeast away from it, no doubt), just as brewers made malt syrup, ice cream, near beer, and soda, and distillers made industrial alcohol and "medicinal" whiskey...and they survived. They would rather survive than die. Public policy is already being implemented: 0.08 BAC driving laws and the 21 drinking age are the law of the land (or will be within a year). Keg registration laws are patchworking the states. Federal beer taxes went up in
1991 along with a number of luxury taxes; the luxury taxes were repealed, beer's still taxed. It IS happening, a gradual, incremental process that is just the path the neo-Prohibition forces have planned.It's all happened before. The neo-Dries think they'll take a different path. It will be just as disastrous, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. I don't for a moment believe that it will be effective over the long-term, but the possible difficulties of the short-term dismay me. No one on the wet side believed national Prohibition would ever go through; that's why they lost.
Gee, that worked so well for the tobacco industries................
"Drinking in America: A History" by Mark Edward Lender:
"Drink: A Social History of America" by Andrew Barr (a British sociologist looks at American drinking mores):
Both books available dirt-cheap used at Amazon; both listings will give you more books worth considering as well. (Andrew Barr also has a book "Wine Snobbery: An Expose"........ sounds intriguing.......)
I do activist work in other areas and I have learned not to believe that just because I have good intentions, the public and government will see things my way and do things accordingly. I'm basing my argument on the book "Food Politics" by Marion Nestle. Her book shows how the food industry works to sell more food to US consumers in this period of caloric overabundance. The food industry (including the restaurant and institutional food service trades) has a massive lobby in Washington fighting efforts to regulate food even as obesity becomes a major public health problem. The food industry also funds research studies showing how each food item can be good for you regardless of where it is on the "food pyramid." They then spend money on PR to get this word out to news outlets and of course they have huge advertising campaigns.
I assume that the beverage industry is part of the food industry in general and will behave in the same way. They certainly have money that wasn't available to the smaller drinks industry at the time of the debate over Prohibition and they have better organization and knowledge of PR and advertising. I can also see a shared agenda as the food industry sees increased regulation of alcohol leading to regulation of food deemed "unhealthy."
This is where I put my trust in our traditional enemy, the megabrewers. I haven't done research but I believe that the big three are all publicly traded and have to answer to shareholders. If they see the threats as serious, then you'll see the effects in the media. I don't want to give them too much credit, but I want to believe that they have studied the process of enacting Prohibition and the fight over tobacco and they have learned the lesson.
Drunk driving as an issue is an opportunity for neo-Prohibitionists. Bars have to open up far away from residential districts and people who drink in bars have to drive home. There is a great distance between dealing with that and letting people know that they can't have a bottle of fancy with their fancy meal in a fancy restaurant or that a law-abiding citizen can't take home a case of beer and drink it there.
As for the N. Virginia incident, I haven't heard of it and I think that means something. Did the arrests stand up in court? I will know this is worrying when the police arrest all the drunks (not just the rowdy ones) at an Eagles game and the convictions stand.
"medicinal"
The main difference is the way that the alcoholic beverages have corporatized. We now have national breweries (and distillers, etc.) and many bars and restaurants belong to chains, so they aren't fragmented like saloons and local brewers were back in the day. PR, advertising, and lobbying are much more sophisticated now and threatened industries all have access to these resources in their fight.
I can't talk for the brewers, etc., but one thing we haven't seen is major lawsuits against the industry. That's what brought down tobacco and there has even bben a class action suit against the fast food industry. That might be a sign that the beverage industry is keeping prohibition forces at bay.
Tom W
The tobacco industry might not be doing as well as they expected ten years ago, but they are still making a profit.
With tobacco, even moderate use in one's own home is a danger to one's health. There is a substantial body of evidence that moderate drinking has health benefits, and the greatest threat from alcohol is drunk driving, so drinking moderately at home poses no threat to health.
Tom W
Not good intentions; good arguments. Good, rational arguments don't necessarily mean squat: see the evidence now coming out that despite legal decisions (and Dow Corning's bankruptcy) to the contrary, silicon breast implants were essentially harmless.
The beverage industry is different. It is more regulated, it is denied some freedoms that the food industry has, and it is protected from competition in some ways the food industry is not: there are no 'slotting fees' in supermarket sales of beer, for instance. And despite the McDonald's lawsuits, alcohol is still much more of a demon than food.
I'd argue that answering to shareholders cripples the megabrewers. Publicly traded companies tend NOT to take the long view; privately held companies have that option. In any case, private and publicly owned breweries clearly saw Prohibition coming, and even after the 19th Amendment was ratified, they kept saying "It won't really happen. They CAN'T do national Prohibition. People won't allow it, they'll demand beer. It's impossible." They were stunned by the passage of the Volstead Act. And they sounded exactly like the drinks industry does today, they reacted exactly like they did today. People are NOT any smarter, wiser, or more far-sighted today. "I want to believe" otherwise, but that's not how I'm betting.
You don't get me. People who go out to lunch from work don't drink at lunch any more. As little as 10 years ago, they did. Restaurants and bars have lost that business. Did they do anything about it, lobby or pressure Hollywood to show drinking at lunch as a good thing? No. They rolled over. They'll keep rolling over.
Yeah, it means nobody sent the story to you. Here:
We had brewers back in those days that were so politically sophisticated they were routinely influencing elections: that was one of the most convincing reasons for Prohibition, breaking the political power of the booze lobby. Bars and restaurants belonged to the breweries (that's why we have the anti-tied house laws now), so they ALL did what the booze lobby told them to do. PR and advertising may be more sophisticated (I'd argue about lobbying), but the threatened industries are MUCH more gun-shy of using them because of the successful stigmatization of alcohol.
I interviewed Bill Samuels, the prez of Maker's Mark, a few years ago. Said he'd been to a nat'l meeting as part of the KY Chamber of Commerce. The Nat'l CofC had commissioned a study to see who the trial lawyers were going to go after once Big Tobacco had been successfully gutted. The order was recreational firearms (see the gun lawsuits in Chicago and other cities), fast food (as you said), and alcohol beverages was third. Just a matter of time. It can happen again. It will. Unless we work harder to stop it.
I think we've hit the point where we can't advance this any further - we can only repeat ourselves, so I am not going to try to push my points again. I'm not agruing against you, Lew, I find it hard to believe that multibillion dollar corporations will roll over to implement a policy that was proven to be a failure decades ago.
The way forward, then, is to organize against a prohibitionist agenda. It would naturally be bipartisan as it would appeal to the deregulation and lower taxes people of the right and the right-to-one's-pleasure people of the left. Fund raising should be simple - if the organization is 501(c3), meaning that the purpose of the organization is to educate consumers about choices in the marketplace (and not lobby legislators) - then contributions would be tax deductible and foundations tied to big brewing companies should be happy to give an independent organization seed money to help them survive.
Tom W
Yep. Literal prohibition will not reoccur in the U.S. It's politically untenable. But, it is easier to chip away at things surrounding the free availability of alcohol. And once you make it very difficult for people to purchase or consume, you've pretty much hit your goals anyway, even if you don't have a law that says "no booze."
-Steve
I'm not getting your point there, Lew. Those *are* drugs. Just because something is a drug doesn't make it bad. The other prohibitionist movement has made the word more perjorative than it should be, but there are all sorts of useful and/or benign drugs.
Now, of course, the alcohol is a drug line of reasoning tries to pair it with coke and smack. And there is not an equivalency.
Denying that alcohol is a drug isn't going to get you anywhere, because it comes across as having as much intellectual validity as claiming that the moon landing was staged. It needs to be addressed that alcohol is not the equivalent of opium and LSD, just as caffeine and aspirin are, and that it therefore needs to be treated differently.
-Steve
I suspect you can go back even further than that. In other words, I suspect a lot of that has always been there. One could interpret that as that there is this decades-long insidious movement to pull the beer from our hands again. Or one could interpret that, depsite the push for this sort of thing for so long, we're still able to fill up a pint when we want. I suspect the reality lies somewhere in between.
One thing those of us fighting neo-prohibitionist forces need to be careful of is how we state our case. The problem is not tougher drunk-driving laws, for example; it's that they've been toughened in the wrong way. Personally, I believe that any repeat offense should carry significant prison time, say five years (I'm not willing to go Draconian on a first offense, under the belief that everyone's entitled to a mistake). I believe vehicular homicide should be the equivalent of non-premeditated homicide using any other implement other than a car and bottle. Drunk driving is an objective, serious danger, and needs to be treated as such. It is not. Instead, we have laws that focus on the wrong side of the equation, by making it more difficult for law-abiding, sane, responsible drinkers to imbibe outside of the home. Just saying "tougher drunk driving laws are bad" makes us look like idiots. I've addressed the problems with denying that alcohol is a drug elsewhere in the thread.
-Steve
I don't think that's a life preserver at all. Being publicly held puts enormous pressure on a company to operate in such a way that provides a solid return on the stock price. And the investment climate of the last 25 years or so has vastly emphasized short-term, quarter-to-quarter results instead of long-term growth.
If I'm a brewer or distiller, and my stock price is getting hammered because of lawsuits or legislative pressure, I'm going to settle.
One needs look no further than the tobacco companies. They were getting hammered in the markets. They settled. They are growing. Altria is one of the best-performing stocks of the last year. And yet, the industry is nowhere near as healthy as it once was. Certainly not as diverse. And, for companies like Altria, much of their growth has had to come from businesses that have nothing to do with tobacco.
Granted, there's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison between the drinks business and tobacco. The former has not been caught committing perjury before Congress, deliberately falsifying documents, etc. There is a certain degree to which, yes, tobacco had it coming. That doesn't diminish the market lessons learned from their experience, however.
I take it simply as a sign that they just haven't gotten around to drinks yet. They'll hit food for a while, and once that's finished, they'll need a new target.
-Steve
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.