Happy New Beer, etc.

On Monday, brewers around the country got together to commemorate the ending of Prohibition by drinking some beer. The event is no doubt historic, and deserves a celebration, but there was something in the CNN article covering the event that stuck in my proverbial craw.

The article featured the "anti" side of the celebration, a spokesman from the alcohol industry watchdog group, the Marin Institute, who stated, "[Beer] is the product of choice for underage drinking."

Beer is not the "product of choice" for underage drinking. Wine is not the "product of choice" for underage drinking. As a matter of fact, nothing is the product of choice for underage drinkers because they don't have choice.

Choice is the thing that we deny underage drinkers. The cannot walk into a liquor store, peruse the aisles and decide on beer versus whisky; they take what they can get.

To demonize beer in this context is to remove responsibility from parents, teachers, mentors, and law enforcement and lay it at the feet of a beverage and its makers who are in the business of selling it and are legally authorized to do so.

To demonize beer in this context is to remove responsibility from groups such as Marin Institute, certain religious groups, and politicians looking to score easy points for the social and cultural climate they create around alcohol and beer.

We could be creating media literate youth; we are not. We could make alcohol part of the greater fabric of our culture, and leave it to our social groups to regulate and educate; we are not.

Alcohol is a luxury product, that is, it's something that we don't necessarily need. It is not housing, infrastructure, fuel, water, or electricity. As such, we should be giving consumers more credit in policing themselves. If we want people to use alcohol responsibly, then we should be be given the responsibility of showing our youth that in context.