Joe Rogan and the Doctor's Crazy Claim

The impact of pop culture on the fate of wine

To stay abreast of what the anti-alcohol nannyists are up to, I’ve made a Twitter list with a of number of their types assigned to it. I scroll through it daily to discover what new ways the Oregon Pinot Noir Producers and Virginia Viognier vintners have come up with to kill people. And of course, I’m looking to learn when the scarlet letters will be passed out to the owners of microbreweries.

A couple of days ago, one of the accounts proudly announced that world-famous podcaster Joe Rogan had quit drinking. Intrigued, I clicked the link and watched part of the video of Joe making the announcement. Here he is announcing his sobriety.

If you watch the above video, you’ll hear Joe explain that he quit “for no other reason other than it’s [drinking alcohol] not good for you. He then went on to say the following: “The days after drinking were just too rough.”

I think we can discern that Joe's drinking may have amounted to a little bit more than a glass of wine with supper. If this is the case, then indeed that’s “not good for you.” The wine industry could have told him that decades ago.

But that’s not what I’m here to call out.

There was a link from the same Twitter account to a news article about Rogan’s announcement. It took me to a Fox News article. The article goes on to essentially relay what Rogan announced on his show. But at the very top of the article was a video of Dr. Brett Osborn, a Florida neurosurgeon and ‘longevity doctor”, explaining that there is absolutely nothing about alcohol that is good. But that’s not all. Had it been, I’d have been listening to the same thing I read every day from the folks on my “Bad Health Twitter List”.