Why do politicians suck up to the booze industry?
National Alcohol Awareness Month begins April 1. Cheers.
Each April since 1987, the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD) has sponsored Alcohol Awareness Month to increase public awareness, understanding of the possible harm related to alcohol abuse, while encouraging local communities to focus on alcoholism and alcohol-related issues. “I’ll drink to that.” Actually, I shouldn’t joke about booze. Too often I’ve seen how it can kill a person and their family members, in either the literal or figurative sense.
Alcohol abuse runs on both sides of my family, so I hit the family jackpot for the alcohol genes, shall we say. Thankfully, as I grew up (let’s pretend) and got married, became a parent, I gave up downing gin and tonics and Crown Royal on the rocks.
After I got married, I switched to beer, but could never drink the light beer, which is, in essence, real beer that has been watered down to resemble river water.
Beer manufacturers and distributors make a bigger profit off light beer, because for one thing, water is free, and people tend to lap up the light stuff (cut down on calories) to reduce calories while ordering an extra-large supreme pizza with extra sausage.
I think the beer commercials have something to do with the high-volume sales of light beer and its popularity. By the way, on the beer commercials, still legal on TV even though cigarette advertising is not, do you ever see what long-term alcohol consumption can do to a liver? Hardly.
The beer ads never show liver cirrhosis in its end stages, or what a wife and kid look like after Drunk Dad has knocked them around after coming home late from the bar, upset because the barmaid said no.
Bring on the Hotties
Instead, the beer commercials show hot-looking young women with cosmetic chests, chiseled abs, sleek legs, and guys with six-pack abs and biceps that just won’t quit. The subliminal message is, if you drink enough beer, you, too, can look young and handsome/ beautiful again and attract to you, beautiful people in the physical sense.
In other words, beer and sex-appeal sell.
The beer ads never show the guy passed out on the couch at 8 p.m. snoring, one nose hair longer than the other, after just downing his evening 12 pack, urinating on the couch cushions, while his wife, decked out in a dirty bath robe and a soiled thong, shuffles to the laundry pantry looking for that second bottle of Peppermint Schnapps. Christmas is always tomorrow.
Knowing the misery that alcohol abuse causes, why do the feds still allow it to be advertised on TV? Cigarettes are banned. Question; what causes more societal misery? Cigarettes or alcohol?
“Pour me another one and let me give it some thought.”
Still, Congress, comprised of many drunks, both dry and wet, fails to enact any law that prohibits alcohol advertising on the boob tube. The alcohol industry (lobbyists) pumps money into the pockets of politicos to instead stand aside and focus on the danger of e-cigs or vape shops that sell harmless hemp (THC lower than 0.3 percent).
Plus, face it, too many politicians love to guzzle the liquid mind-altering drug, which may explain why so many of them seem to make up laws that only a drunk could understand.
“Makes sense to me. Can you pour me another one?”
April is Alcohol Awareness Month; but it’s all for show.
Alcohol is indeed a drug. One of the worst drugs actually, based on almost any metric one looks at with regard to substance abuse, intoxication, deadly car wrecks.
Drunk in moderation, it’s true that alcohol doesn’t cause a problem for most people unless they are a diabetic, perhaps, or suffer from hypertension, It has caused devastation to many families, however, and there is no way to discount that completely. Meanwhile, all across the Valley, at city-sponsored events, beer distributors are allowed to set up shop as long as they toss in some money to help sponsor the event. They’re seen as the good guys, with their names (both business and personal) listed as “sponsors,” even though what they sell is really a serious drug that has caused untold devastation to families. Add to that, the number of DWI fatalities in the RGV, and what the heck, here comes another beer commercial.
“Oh, look at that mamacita on the TV, vato.”
Cheers. Meanwhile, over at UTRGV, college administrators with the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics announced several years ago that the U was expanding its beerand- wine menu to include men’s and women’s basketball and baseball home games.
A 16-ounce beer sold by Sodexo Campus Dining Services (I need to look up its owners) was only going to sell for $8 a can, with a $5 charge for all refills. Wine cost a few bucks less.
Better yet, college fans could start drinking an hour before game time, so getting loaded wouldn’t be a problem.
Bottoms up. Those prices, by the way, were from three years ago. No doubt they’ve gone up since then.
Alcohol Awareness Month starts April 1.
We should all quit drinking for a month and see how the DWIs bottom out.
“Pour me another one and let me give it some thought. I can tell you one thing, though. The judge sure ain’t gonna quit drinking.”
Which judge?