On April 1 (no joke) Senator Strom Thurmond (SC) introduced a bill to amend the Government Warning that is printed on every beer-label. Read how it will look like (new add-ons in bold):

GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may lead to alcoholism. (3) Moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages may cause health problems such as hypertension and breast cancer.

The research to back these outrageous claims is simply not there. On the contrary. All research shows that moderate daily consumption of alcoholic beverages is good for you. And two or three beers a day is still moderate consumption, especially when enjoyed with your meals. Many examples of these research proving the healthy benefits of moderate beer-consumption have been printed in previous issues of this Newsletters, and can be found on our website. You want more proof? Let me give you one more. Last December The American Cancer Society released a study done with the help of about 1/2 million Americans, aged between 30 and 104. What does the study prove? Those who consume up to one or two alcoholic drinks each day had a lower overall mortality rate than non-drinkers.

Since nobody is reading what is printed in these government warnings on the back of a bottle, you may wonder what is the agenda of these neo-prohibitionists. Does ‘fun’ still equal ‘sin’ for them? Don’t they want you to have a healthy body? When we let them continue, some years from now, every beer or wine bottle will come with a letter, full of warnings and disclaimers, that you will have to sign before drinking. Some suggestions of extra warnings:

* (4) Drinking alcoholic beverages may let you perceive ugly men as lovely princes, and ugly women as attractive seductresses.
* (5) Drinking alcoholic beverages may let you want to talk to strangers, while you should shut your mouth and watch TV.
* (6) Drinking alcoholic beverages may give you the impression that you are an expert on topics you never read the first word about. You may actually start liking poetry, while you should only read Sports.
* (7) Drinking alcoholic beverages may make you believe that you are great, while in fact you are just a lousy tiny boring loser.

An other result: it’s not fun, and it costs a lot of money for the smaller brands, imports and micro’s to print new labels and throw away the old ones. No problem of course, for big brother, macro brewer.

Newsletter June 1998