Surveys Show Anti-Alcohol Message Works ...It's Time to Respond

The damage done by Surgeon General will get worse

Last week, two studies were released that provided the bad news most folks in the wine industry knew or felt. In both the Silicon Valley State of the Industry Report and the SOVOS-WineBusiness Direct-to-Consumer Shipping Report, a series of industry headwinds explained a significant downturn in all types of sales, from on-premise and off-premise to DtC sales. Both reports drew attention to an anti-alcohol movement that was having an important negative impact on sales.

It’s notable that both these reports were released before the Surgeon General’s incendiary and robustly reported Advisory that declared alcohol causes cancer, as well as the subsequent report from the federal government’s Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking that described increased mortality risk with at low levels of alcohol consumption.

The important question now circulating among many in the wine industry is whether or not there ought to be a coordinated push-back against the anti-alcohol cabal that has so successfully worked to position alcohol consumption as akin to cigarette smoking.

What I can’t figure out is why this is a question.

At this point, the factors that have led to a downturn in wine sales are fairly well understood. They include inflationary pressures, slowed economic achievement among Millennials and Gen Z, a proliferation of alternative alcohol choices (RTDs, Hard Cider, Hard Seltzer, etc.), the decreasing size of the Baby Boomer generation, and a decidedly less adventurous and fewer social gatherings among younger generations.

All these factors reflect macro trends and are not the product of advocacy efforts. However, the anti-alcohol attitude spreading through America and other cultures is definitely the result of well-funded advocacy that is not organic in nature.

It is difficult to push back on organic, macro trends such as inflation or the kind of large economic trends such as those that set back Millennials and Gen Z. However, it is quite possible to counter plastic, unnatural efforts to kill the wine industry such as those carried out by The World Health Organization, Movendi, activist researchers, and the United States Surgeon General.

SURVEYS SHOW AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT FROM ANTI-ALCOHOL MESSAGING
Two very recent polls were undertaken that demonstrate the necessity of creating an organized effort to combat anti-alcohol advocacy. They both present a dismal picture of the impact this effort to demonize alcohol and, particularly the Surgeon General’s Advisory has had in just two short weeks.

In a recently published CNN poll, a question on the role of the federal government served as a proxy for a direct question about support for the cancer warning labels recommended in the Surgeon General’s Advisory. Here is how survey respondents responded:

“The government should provide guidance to Americans about how best to keep healthy”—50% agreed

“The government should let Americans make up their own minds about how best to keep healthy”—49% agreed.

That question, suggesting that at least half of Americans would support cancer warning labels on Alcohol, was followed up with this:

Do you, personally, think drinking in moderation--that is one or two drinks a day--is good for your health, makes no difference, or is bad for your health?

Good for your health—8%
Makes no difference—43%
Bad for your health—50%

There is no way to spin this result. Not only does a huge swath of Americans believe alcohol is bad for your health, but there is no denying that this is a real trend unlikely to be turned around if nothing is done. Consider the responses given to Gallup asking this same question over time:

In less than 20 years, the number of Americans believing alcohol is bad for your health has nearly doubled.

FoxNews also commissioned a poll that asked specifically about the Surgeon General’s Advisory.

Do you approve or disapprove of the U.S. Surgeon General's recommendation to put cancer risk warning labels on alcoholic beverages?

Approve—76%
Disapprove—19%

Will you drink fewer alcoholic beverages because of the Surgeon General's warning, or not?

Yes—31%
No—61%

That 76% approval of cancer warning labels on wine is what you get when you ask the actual question that CNN’s survey hinted at. There are few things that 76% of Americans agree upon.

Equally, if not more important, a third of those who drink alcohol are saying the Surgeon General’s Advisory will motivate them to drink less.

Anyone who tells you the Surgeon General’s recent Advisory on alcohol and cancer (not to mention the ongoing media coverage and continued advocacy against all alcohol consumption) isn’t going to have an impact on wine sales either isn’t paying attention or doesn’t care. This leads me again to wonder why there is any question as to whether or not the alcohol industry ought to undertake a campaign pushing back against the highly questionable and biased attempts to cast alcohol as purely bad for us.

If you want a good example of just how poorly conceived and executed as well as biased the Surgeon General’s advisory is, all you have to do is read Michael Alberty’s excellent article in the Oregonian on the Advisory, its creation, and its conclusions:

The Surgeon General’s 20,000 deaths figure is based on a research brief titled “Reducing Alcohol Use to Prevent Cancer Deaths: Estimated Effects Among U.S. Adults” by Marissa Esser et al., published last year in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study states that “an estimated 20,216 cancer deaths were alcohol-attributable/year during 2020-2021.”

The study also noted that 83% of those deaths “could have been prevented/year if adults who drank alcohol in excess of the Dietary Guidelines had instead reduced their consumption to ≤2 drinks/day for men or ≤1 drink/day for women.”

This means the vast majority of the 20,216 alcohol-attributable deaths in 2020-2021 were due to excessive drinking beyond current federal recommendations for modest consumption.

To add more perspective to the 3,437 deaths figure, The Los Angeles Times reported in 2015 on a study in Circulation that estimated that drinking sugary drinks appears to kill 125,000 Americans each year through obesity-fueled cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

This is just one example of the various ways by which the alcohol industry can demonstrate this anti-alcohol push is ill-advised, anti-scientific, and biased. There are numerous other ways a robust media and public relations effort can help diminish the impact of the anti-alcohol campaign.

While the alcohol industry had worked to lobby against some of the efforts that led to the above-mentioned report by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking, which is also designed to influence the coming update of the Dietary Guidelines and their alcohol consumption recommendations, there is been no coordinated effort to combat the onslaught of the anti-alcohol campaign that is both national and international in scope.

WHAT MUST BE DONE
Due to federal rules on what an alcohol licensee can say about the health effects of alcohol consumption, it would be very unwise for licensed producers, wholesalers, or retailers to fund and undertake a pushback campaign. No licensee is going to risk punishment, let alone their license.

It is equally true that licensees undertaking a campaign against the biased alcohol information being disseminated by the Surgeon General as well as other actors put themselves at risk of lawsuits.

However, it is much more feasible for trade associations to undertake these kinds of media and public relations efforts. And they should.

Inter-industry collaborations of the type I’m talking about are unusual. However, there are examples of them being undertaken and working. The United States Wine Trade Alliance is a successful association of wholesalers, producers, retailers, importers, and restaurants working to diminish the impact of tariffs on alcohol. Additionally, Oregon’s alcohol industry—including wholesalers and producers—came together to sit on a task force on alcohol taxes and thwarted an attempt to create a report that demonized the state’s alcohol industry in an attempt to justify higher taxes.

The alcohol industry must immediately come together to create and fund a new trade association representing producers, wholesalers, importers, retailers, restaurants, and other participants in the alcohol industry. This new Association would be charged with gathering all information possible on the biases of the anti-alcohol cabal—including the Surgeon General. It should gather reliable studies that demonstrate moderate alcohol consumption delivers positive benefits. And it should deliver this information to every media outlet, medical association, think tank, and influencer willing to listen. The campaign should be funded such that it can be continually carried out for numerous years.

That one-third of alcohol consumers who plan to reduce consumption as a result of the Surgeon General’s Advisory is just the beginning. That figure will grow as the message that alcohol causes cancer is further spread throughout the culture and educational institutions. And if the coming Dietary Guidelines provide even more ammunition for the anti-alcohol cabal, that one-third of alcohol consumers could easily grow to one-half. How much of a reduction in consumption will Silicon Valley Bank and SOVOS-WineBusiness be reporting in future years if this comes to pass without any attempt to combat the biased reporting on alcohol? How many jobs will be lost? How many wine businesses will go bust? How many vineyards will be ripped out of the ground? How many careers will be ended?