[thefactor]

we saw some evidence of this last night...

[WayneS]

We are facing a new pandemic - alcohol as a major risk factor for poor health.

New?

Where has they been for the last 10,000 years or so?

[squarebarb]

Socialism and nanny-state governments always, always have problems with alcoholism.

[libertarian27]

The more Nanny whines the more I need a drink.....

[Daveinyork]

Sooner or later, the puritans and the prohibitionists will return to demon rum. Their gun is notched with marijuana, tobacco, sugar, fat, salt, froid gras, etc. In need of another notch on the gun, alcohol is there for the taking. Can caffeine be far behind?

[WayneS]

The Scots give up alcohol?

But Scotch is what sets the Scots apart from every other group of skirt-wearing men who talk funny!

;-)

[aruanan]

We are facing a new pandemic - alcohol as a major risk factor for poor health.

Here we go again. Back before Prohibition, one out of every five Americans worked in the liquor industry in some way. Per capita alcohol consumption ages 15 and above was about 100 fifths of liquor per year. But we didn't have organized crime (organized crime was a direct result of needing to organize alcohol shipments between different parts of the country). We didn't have an income tax. Once prohibition started an additional source of income would be needed to replace what was lost to the federal government from excise taxes (about 40% of its revenues came from taxes on alcoholic beverages). Those people in the temperance movement were also those behind the income tax. Before, we had alcohol. Now we have alcohol, organized crime, the income tax and the insatiable appetite for more spending that it has made possible thanks to a bunch of busy bodies who thought their cause was so noble that it required the power of the federal government to make it work.