The Alcohol Industry Needs Alcoholism to Survive [View all]

[cally]

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/10/05/the-alcohol-industry-needs-alcoholism-to-thrive/

This has been percolating on internet discussion forums since Chris Hayes Show that had a segment on this last week. I was stunned at the segment and made me look closely at the alcohol ads and the constant push for alcohol at public events. Essentially, the industry has an incentive to promote the idea that alcoholism is not a disease but a lack of personal morals and self control. The industry also has an incentive to limit access to rehab facilities. I would love to see more analysis to see if the alcohol industry does spend money on opposing initiatives to promote incarceration instead of rehab and if they had any roll in lobbying congress.

Excerpt from article:

The alcohol industry makes its money off the backs of addicts, and higher alcohol taxes could help. That’s the takeaway from a recent segment on MSNBC’s show All In With Chris Hayes. Hayes’s guest was Dr. Phillip Cook, a professor of public policy at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and an expert on American alcohol policy. Cook wrote a book in 2007 on American alcohol consumption, Paying the Tab, which belatedly began to make the rounds on the web this week thanks to a piece highlighing his research in the Washington Post‘s Wonkblog.

The piece notes that 30 percent of Americans don’t drink at all, while another 30 percent drink, on average, less than one drink per week. Thus only 40 percent of the American population really supports the alcohol industry. But within that 40 percent, it’s actually the top 10 percent of regular drinkers—those who consume on average ten drinks per day—that makes the most difference: