The Five Pillars of Anti-Alcohol Hysteria
Canada is leading the way and the U.S. Zealots will follow.
If you are interested in seeing exactly what is coming to the United States concerning cancer warning labels on all alcohol and how the issue will be represented, and how the risk of cancer from alcohol will be compared directly to the cancer threat from tobacco, then watch the video clip below and the entire video of a recent committee hearing in the Canadian Parlaiment that I link to further down in this post. But before that, I have a few of questions.
What is it about those folks who can’t control their own urges, can’t abide by the simple idea of moderation, or who fall prey to their own personal issues surrounding alcohol, that makes them feel all individuals are equally at risk?
Moreover, why do those who have personally succumbed to the problems associated with overconsumption of alcohol (a very small part of the population) blame alcohol for their problems instead of themselves?
Furthermore, why do people like Senator Brazeau feel the need to exaggerate the impact of alcohol consumption and even misrepresent the impact of alcohol consumption in order to convince their colleagues and the population at large to transfer responsibility for their own weakness to an entire industry?
These are the questions I ask when I read that Canadian Senator Patrick Brazeau, the author of a bill, S-202, that would place cancer warning labels on all alcoholic containers in Canada, says the following:
“It [alcohol] does ruin lives. It kills people. It’s certainly not good for mental health. And personally, you know, it led me down a very, very, very dark path, so dark that I just wanted to put an end to my life,”
I always wonder why folks like Senator Brazeau seem incapable of acknowledging that alcohol did nothing to him or his life, nor did it put him on any path. The alcohol did not jump up while he was sleeping and pour itself down his throat. It was Senator Brazeau who overconsumed alcohol. Yet, Senator Brazeau is one of those people who believes that an entire industry needs to be vilified and destroyed because he could not control his own drinking, while the vast and overwhelming majority of Canadians do just fine with their alcohol consumption.
And so, without nuance, Senator Brazeau is advocating that Canada adopt warning labels on all alcohol containers warning that drinking alcohol causes cancer.