Is The U.S. Government Prepared to Put Small Wineries, Brewers and Distillers Out of Business?

What does recommending no more than two drinks a week do for the alcohol business?

If government bureaucrats with relatively little power wanted to really harm the craft alcohol industry in America, how would they go about doing it? Keep reading, because I think it’s done like this.

Between 1990 and 1995, the U.S. government changed its tune on alcohol consumption. It went from saying its consumption provided no health benefits to advising that “current evidence suggests that moderate drinking … is associated with a lower risk for coronary heart disease in some individuals.”

That advice lasted for 15 years when, in 2010, the U.S. government declared there was strong evidence that concerning alcohol consumption, “the lowest mortality risk for men and women [occurs] at the average level of one to two drinks per day, [and] is likely due to the protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on CHD [coronary heart disease], diabetes and ischemic stroke.”

But just five years after that the U.S. government’s view of alcohol consumption started to change. In 2015 it declared, “If alcohol is consumed, it should be in moderation—up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men,” insinuating that no alcohol consumption was best.

That trajectory continued in 2020 when the Feds declared it’s best that men only have one drink per day.

2025 will be the next opportunity for the federal government to weigh in on the meaning of and proper amount of alcohol consumption when it releases its next round of dietary guidelines, which include advice on alcohol consumption. We recently got a taste of what those alcohol consumption guidelines might be when Dr George Koob, director for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told the Daily Mail: “I mean, they're not going to go up, I'm pretty sure…So, if it goes in any direction, it would be toward Canada.”

Canada.

Early this year, Canada’s Centre on Substance Use and Addiction announced the first update on its alcohol consumption guidelines in 11 years:

“No Level of Alcohol Consumption is Safe”
”No More Than Two Drinks Per…Week”

If the U.S. Government chooses to follow Canada’s lead, that would represent an 85% decrease in the amount of alcohol recommended be consumed per week. Eighty-Five Percent.

First, let’s be clear about one thing, this statement is a matter of the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism putting his thumb on the scale before the studies and deliberations that need to be done before the 2025 guidelines are created can even be done. Moreover, he’s probably entirely wrong. In the Daily Mail article, the Director went on to claim there are “no benefits” to physical health from drinking alcohol. Again, the statement is made before any of the official deliberations have been made and before the public has been allowed to weigh in. It’s regulatory malpractice and there’s a lot at stake…including the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

If you are interested in this subject, I urge you to read the work of Dr. Stanton Peale, who brings a good deal of logic and reason to this subject. In particular, read his article “The Perpetual Pendulum of U.S. Drinking Guidelines.

The Canadian guidelines that Dr. Koob is referencing claim that having two drinks a week results in a low risk for cancer, with three to six drinks posing a moderate risk, and consuming in a week results in a high risk. Seven drinks per week is exactly half of what the U.S. government currently recommends as moderate consumption. The Canadian guidance has been raked over the coals.

There are a number of folks today who don’t believe anything the U.S. government has to say can be taken seriously; that it all has to be taken with a grain of salt. But if you don’t think that an announcement by the Feds that folks should consume no more than two drinks a week lest they risk cancer would have an impact on how much wine, beer, and spirits are sold in this country, then you just aren’t paying attention to the past four years.

This kind of recommendation will cause a significant reduction in alcohol consumption and put small distillers, brewers, and wineries out of business as folks, who have no time to look deeper, lap up and follow this kind of shoddy recommendation. Along with those businesses will go thousands of jobs. But don’t worry. The very largest brewers, distillers, wineries, retailers, and wholesalers will survive.

The last time the U.S. alcohol industry was able to come together to oppose something was with the advent of alcohol tariffs in 2019. Right this minute, the entire American alcohol industry needs to come together one more time and oppose this kind of policy. It needs to lobby with one voice, buttressed by real science and real commonsense.

And…the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism needs to be chastised at best, but probably worse.