Behind The Neo-Prohibition Campaign

The Center for Consumer Freedom ^ | April 17, 2003 | Dan Mindus

[WaterDragon]

America’s anti-alcohol movement is composed of dozens of overlapping community groups, research institutions, and advocacy organizations, but they are brought together and given direction by one entity: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the RWJF has spent more than $265 million between 1997 and 2002 to tax, vilify, and restrict access to alcoholic beverages. Nearly every study disparaging alcohol in the mass media, every legislative push to limit marketing or increase taxes, and every supposedly “grassroots” anti-alcohol movement was conceived and coordinated at the RWJF’s headquarters. Thanks to this one foundation, the U.S. anti-alcohol movement speaks with one voice.

For the RWJF, it is an article of faith that diminishing per capita consumption across the board can contain the social consequences of alcohol abuse. Therefore, it has engaged in a long-term war to reduce overall drinking by all Americans. The RWJF relentlessly audits its own programs, checking to see if each dollar spent is having the maximum impact on reducing per capita consumption. Over the past 10 years, this blueprint has been refined. Increased taxes, omnipresent roadblocks, and a near total elimination of alcohol marketing are just a few of the tactics the RWJF now employs in its so-called “environmental” approach.

The environmental approach seeks to shift blame from the alcohol abuser to society in general (and to alcohol providers in particular). So the RWJF has turned providers into public enemy number one, burdening them with restrictions and taxes to make their business as difficult and complex as possible. The environmental approach’s message to typical consumers, meanwhile, is that drinking is abnormal and unacceptable. The RWJF seeks to marginalize drinking by driving it underground, away from mainstream culture and public places.

The RWJF funds programs that focus on every conceivable target, at every level from local community groups to state and federal legislation. Every demographic group is targeted: women, children, the middle class, business managers, Hispanics, Blacks, Whites, Native Americans. Every legal means is used: taxation, regulation, litigation. Every PR tactic: grassroots advocacy, paid advertising, press warfare. Every conceivable location: college campuses, sporting events, restaurants, cultural activities, inner cities, residential neighborhoods, and even bars.

The RWJF scored a major victory in 2000 with a federal .08 BAC mandate, and can claim credit for restrictions on alcohol in localities all over the country. But its $265 million has accomplished much more: it has put in place all the elements required for more sweeping change. This includes a vast network of local community organizations, centers for technical support, a compliant press, and a growing body of academic literature critical of even moderate alcohol consumption. The next highly publicized study or angry local movement may now reach the “tipping point” where the RWJF-funded anti-alcohol agenda snowballs into the kind of orchestrated frenzy the tobacco industry knows well.

Click HERE for the complete article.

[xrp]

My answer to your question is NO, I do not support druggies (or any human) killing another one with the exception of self defense.

Now, do you have the mental capacity to answer my questions or are you just going to open up your little text document on your computer and cut and paste some more re-hashed lines?

[cinFLA]

Should cops start shooting kids when they pull the kids' parents over for speeding?

Please post the article and stop making false inferences.

[cinFLA]

Now, do you have the mental capacity to answer my questions or are you just going to open up your little text document on your computer and cut and paste some more re-hashed lines?

And I have posted my position multiple times. Before you accuse me, please back it up with something I have posted.

[cinFLA]

Now, do you have the mental capacity to answer my questions or are you just going to open up your little text document on your computer and cut and paste some more re-hashed lines?

You mean like you do when you claim the republicans support the communist party plank? Over and Over again?

[jmc813]

And with actions like you want, they would probably have more defections

This might sound crazy, but I'd say this would be a good thing. I'd love to cleanse all o0f the RINO's out in one fell swoop and temporarily be in the minority. Keep in mind, I am from New Jersey, the native habitat of the RINO, so don't attack my position unless you've lived in a RINO infested state yourself.

[jmc813]

Over and Over again?

Sorry, cin, but I'm gonna hafta call you on this one:

Pot.....Kettle....Black.

[cinFLA]

This might sound crazy, but I'd say this would be a good thing. I'd love to cleanse all o0f the RINO's out in one fell swoop and temporarily be in the minority. Keep in mind, I am from New Jersey, the native habitat of the RINO, so don't attack my position unless you've lived in a RINO infested state yourself.

But then we would have had eight years of the Clinton mandate and then eight more years of the Gore mandate. I am too old for that.

[cinFLA]

Sorry, cin, but I'm gonna hafta call you on this one:

Huh?

[okiesap]

By what standard do you judge the use of a plant selfish, irresponsible and immoral? Its certainly not the U.S. Constitution or even the Bible. A minimal amount of research will prove, however, that the tactics used to criminalize marijuana in the first place were completely selfish, irresponsible and immoral.

[xrp]

Just as I suspected...lack of mental capacity :(

[jmc813]

Huh?With all due respect, you are not in a position to be accusing someone of posting something over and over. :-)

[cinFLA]

Just as I suspected...lack of mental capacity :(

I started to add that you just keep posting the same old stuff about the communist party, I refute and then you just go away. Definitely a lack of mental capacity on your part.

[xrp]

Uhm you don't refute it. The FCC, DEA, Dept of Education, progressive taxes, etc are all still in existance. Definite communist stances. Add onto that the police state based on the WoD, which includes home invasions, seizure of private property without due process and killing of innocents and we have a serious situation on our hands.

[cinFLA]

Huh?With all due respect, you are not in a position to be accusing someone of posting something over and over. :-)

But it was xrp that ACCUSED ME? I was just asking if it was like his reposts. Why don't you criticize him? He was making the accusation.

[cinFLA]

Uhm you don't refute it. The FCC, DEA, Dept of Education, progressive taxes, etc are all still in existance.

And ?????? How would you eliminate them if you

Were the president?

Were in the Senate?

Were is Congress?

[xrp]

As President? Fire them and don't fill the positions. Eliminate the departments.

In Congress (Senate is part of Congress)? Cut off funding and introduce legislation to eliminate the departments.

How would you go about obtaining fresh drinking water by using desalinization?

[cinFLA]

Whoops, here we go...Dept of 'Homeland Security'.

This shows your total IGNORANCE on our government!

[jmc813]

Look, nobody's hands are clean in this, and it really disappoints me that we as adults were not able to discuss what I thought to be an interesting article. Conversation could've segued from how certain groups want to control others' intake of alcohol into mandatory child seats into tobacco nazis and their recent gains in places such as New York City. But alas, yet another stupid flamewwar had to erupt. Don't get me wrong, you're certainly not the only one responsible.

Anyhow, I'm off to drink whiskey and watch some Survivor. Later.

[xrp]

This shows your support for BIGGER more INTRUSIVE government which results in less freedoms and a TOTAL POLICE STATE.

[cinFLA]

As President? Fire them and don't fill the positions. Eliminate the departments.

That's why we don't elect libertarians.