Post #1205 by woofmutt on Fri, May 3, 2002 10:33 AM

A really annoying thing about the beer distributors pressure agains hard liquor ads on TV is that health officials and anti-alcohol people chimed in with them and blah-blah-blahed about the end of civilization as we know it if ads for vodka should air. Their collective voice added to the myth that the alcohol in beer and wine is somehow different than the alcohol in rum or bourbon (I'm sure there are many alcoholics who don't think they are alcoholics because all they drink is beer). I believe, due to the beer and wine whining and threats of new laws restricting such ads, NBC has cancled its ad plans. We've been spared the horrors of hard liquor ads while the beer companies continue to run ads implying all night parties full of limitless beer consumption. Such anti hard liquor attitudes aren't new...An 18th century Hogarth engraving showed "Gin Lane" with people drunk, starving, and dying in the streets, buildings falling down, and a pawn shop doing good business. In another engraving named "Beer Street" there are happy, healthy, litearate people and a pawn shop in disrepair.