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.

I don't know much about either group, but the assertions made against the neo-prohibitionists do match my own observations of a slow but steady reduction of freedoms regarding alcohol consumption. I wont argue against the merit of some of these restrictions, but I do worry about a continuing effort to push the boundary past what I see a reasonable compromise between safety and freedom.

Full Report

Via The Center For Consumer Freedom