Liar Are Liars

Posted by Tom Wark on Oct 17, 2011

When an organization like the Wine & Spirit Wholesales of America (WSWA) for 20 years tell anyone who will listen that the direct shipment of wine will lead to minors getting drunk and dying, you can forgive their hyperbole because they are just watching out for the kids. But when they say this after years of evidence piliing up that their claim is unfounded, you have to question their sanity or their integrity.

On the other hand, when the WSWA is the driving force behind a whopper so large and so absurd that even the casual observer can see it is a whopper, and when the WSWA continues to tell that whopper, it's hard to give them the benefit of the doubt based on the assumption that they are just stupid.

In Washington State, the WSWA is the primary opponents of Initiative 1183, a ballot initiative that would get Washington State out of the business of selling liquor and put that task in private hands. WSWA has contributed 78% of the anti-Initiative 1183 campaign funds.

The centerpiece of the anti-Initiative 1183 campaign is this claim:

If passed, this initiative will immediately lead to a 50% increase in alcohol consumption and an even larger increase in "problem drinking" according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

If you stand back and take a good look at this claim, the absurdity of it can overwhelm you. If spirits are allowed to be sold in grocery stores the people of Washington State will increase their spirits consumption by 50%. WOW. You have to wonder why spirit companies aren't donating in force to get this initiative passed in Washington state if it will lead to this kind of increase in sales. But they aren't.

What's more, that figure of 50% increase in alcohol consumption if spirits can be sold in Grocery stores turns out not to be a CDC-endorced claim. Still Wine & Spirit Wholesales of America's mouthpiece in Washington State, having been presented with the fact the CDC does not endorse the study from which this absurd figured derived, has this to say: "No one can know precisely how much alcohol consumption will rise, but, again, the CDC predicts a 48 percent increase."

The Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America have been telling the same lies about the direct shipment of wine for 20 years, even with evidence that their claims of dire consequences are unfounded. There is no reason to believe they will back off their unfounded claims about consequences of the sale of spirits in grocery stores in Washington State.

Liars are liars. They don't change their ways.