WSWA propaganda

[Thomas]

I sent the following letter to the USA Today Editor:


We should all send a letter.

Juanita Duggins was lucky to get a byline in USA Today, but what she submitted as news written by an industry CEO was really only a press release written by an industry lobbyist. The story was filled with claims for which the writer offered no substantiated facts, but a few of her specious arguments cry out for a response.

Ms. Duggins would have us believe that the Internet lures scores of under-age drinkers to spend hundreds of dollars on cases of wine, and then more dollars on shipping costs, for that big Friday night party blast. I can't even begin to address the ludicrous nature of that fear-inspiring nonsense. Duggins claims that children buy grain alcohol online. Assuming she tells the truth, and it is a rampant problem, all that need be done is to regulate grain and spirits online, but not table wine, which is a civilized and, thanks to distributors and taxes, an expensive product that children do not go after for a quick, cheap high. The real reason for Ms. Duggins' fear rhetoric is that she is paid to protect alcohol distributors; to do so, she employs pseudo facts from an arsenal of meaningless paragraphs.

Duggins reveres the US Constitution, especially the 21st Amendment. But she engages in selective reverence. The Commerce Clause of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution forms the basis for free trade between and among states, trade that is restricted by the 21st Amendment, in direct conflict with the 4th Amendment. Thanks to a skittish congress after the Repeal of Prohibition, alcohol distribution remains the only federally-sanctioned commercial monopoly in the United States. We all know the effect of a monopoly on access and prices, not to mention how it benefits corporate profits; Duggins is concerned with the latter only.

One more point: Duggins calls alcohol a "controlled substance." What a nice touch of inflammatory language, if only it were true. Alcohol is a regulated product. Controlled substances (mainly narcotics) are dispensed by prescription only, written by an MD and filled by a licensed pharmacist.