Sarah Longwell is rolling a clown car full of falsehoods through every Main Street news outlet that will run it. The term 'red herring' comes to mind when reading this opinion in the Modesto Bee, Rockford Star, and the Journal Standard (Jan. 13) and the Tribune/Democrat (Feb. 11) because the supplier of this viewpoint is the American Beverage Institute: The largest liquor lobby in the country. (click on any of the links to read the Institute's ad)
Why not give it inches of column space to roll out the same alarmist language ('prohibition') and tired, discredited OBSERVATIONAL studies in favor of drinking a toxin and known carcinogen? This is not an op-ed piece. It is an advertisement. Follow the money: Who pays Sarah? Alcohol. She KNOWS what she is writing is a retread of alcohol's parade of junk science without medical or scientific basis.
The Surgeon General's report, while falling short on all the alcohol harms beyond the disease of addiction, does signal a shift in American alcohol policy. One that would leave Sarah dramatically underemployed. Don't fall for special interests declaring a self-serving war on facts: There are NO evidence-based health benefits to drinking alcohol. The 'overwhelming scientific evidence' mentioned at the end of her editorial points to a $250 billion national health pandemic and a proven health problem causing 89,000 deaths a year.
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Scott Stevens is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can't See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. The new BookLocker title is available now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere books are sold.
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