The Government's Poor Portrayal of Alcohol

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The Government's Poor Portrayal of Alcohol

About a week ago, I was passively watching television until a governmentally-funded advertisement caught my eye. In this commercial, a young child goes to the family refrigerator and gets his father a bottle of beer. Then a stereotypical narrator says, “When some parents crave their favorite drug, they’ll even use their own kids to get it. Alcohol is the number one drug problem in this country. Not marijuana. Not cocaine. Don’t be fooled. Alcohol is a drug.” This commercial alarmed me because the majority of people I know consume alcohol. I decided to investigate alcohol and see how bad this all-dangerous “drug” really was. My findings were very shocking, and they led me to question a central federal policy. Should the federal government’s abstinence ideology concerning alcohol be reconsidered?

Contrary to what the federal government would have people believe, moderate consumption of alcohol is very healthy for the human body!

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [NIAA] would have people believe that alcohol is currently the worst drug in the United States. This institution along with Center for Substance Abuse Prevention [CSAP] periodically releases conclusions concerning alcohol to the public that are both misleading and fraudulent. These comments are not based on scientific evidence but instead seem to reflect a neo-prohibitionist effort to stigmatize alcohol. Here are some of the examples of statements made by officials representing governmental agencies in the last five years that are neither based on conclusive, scientific evidence nor even remotely reported from a disinterested, neutral position: Alcohol is the dirtiest drug we have; It permeates and...

... middle of paper ...

...ety of liver diseases may develop, including liver cancer and potentially fatal cirrhosis; digestion is impaired; the stomach and large intestines may become inflamed, and the pancreas damaged.

I have to say that the government is not doing a very good job at educating the public about alcohol. If the government would only clearly define the difference between moderate consumption and abusive consumption and educate the public concerning the positive and negative effects of abstinence, moderate consumption, and abusive consumption instead of insulting the public’s intelligence by not trusting the public’s judgment through their oppressive means of corruptly taking the decision to drink with guilt-free conscious knowing that moderate consumption of alcohol is very healthy away from society, I think all alcohol abuse problems of America would be greatly reduced.

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