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.