Eighty-five years ago, patriots across the country raised a glass to cheer on God, the elimination of government overreach, and most importantly, alcohol.
There’s no evidence that Benjamin Franklin actually said the infamous aphorism, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” but the Founding Fathers really, really loved their booze. They likely would have been horrified at both the principles and outcomes of Prohibition, as initiated by the 18th Amendment, and they would be happy to celebrate today’s 85th anniversary of its repeal via ratification of the 21st Amendment.
Many already know that President George Washington’s farewell party following the signing of the Constitution was a rager, complete with 54 bottles of Madeira wine, 60 bottles of claret, 22 bottles of port, 12 bottles of beer, eight bottles of hard cider, eight bottles of whiskey, and seven bowls of spiked punch. All that was for only 55 people in total! Few today realize how much everyone in the past drank.
You wouldn’t believe it if you listened to modern puritanical fearmongering. They try to characterize scientific studies as showing that every extra glass of wine brings you one month closer to death. But people of the past across the board used to consume alcohol at rates several times of greater than we do today, in part because water quality could be unreliable. The average American today consumes 2.3 gallons of pure alcohol in a year — the equivalent of about 22 fifths (750mL bottles) of Irish whiskey. In 1790, the average American drank more than twice that, 5.8 gallons per year, which is about 55 fifths of whiskey.
Obviously drinking in excess is bad for your health, but the anti-fun lobby likes to blame alcohol disproportionately for cancer risks. Even nearly a century after the death of Prohibition, bad science dominates the alcohol debate. Considering that alcohol consumption has plummeted over time while the cancer rate has increased wildly, there are serious problems with attributing causation. Clearly other environmental and behavioral factors are at play.
From a statistical perspective, the overwhelming causes of avoidable American morbidity and mortality are heart disease and cancer, which in turn are predominately influenced by smoking cigarettes and physical fitness. In fact, just 5.6 percent of cancer cases are currently attributed to alcohol consumption by the American Cancer Society, compared with cigarettes, which are believed to cause nearly four times as many cancer cases.
Of course, science hasn’t stopped bad journalism.
Remember earlier this year when national news outlets uncritically shared a study and told the public that no amount of alcohol is safe? Journalists actually willing to read the Lancet study instead of the press releases could have made it to the relative risk graph, which told the true story. A person who has one drink a day has a one percent higher risk of mortality than a complete abstainer. It takes six or seven drinks per day for a drinker to have a whopping 1.5 percent higher risk of death than someone who doesn’t drink at all.
The media narrative for this study was equivalent to seriously publishing a story with the headline “No amount of driving in a car is safe” or “No amount of sugar is safe.” Okay, maybe these things are not beneficial to your health, and obviously they pose some risks, but it’s a matter of how much.
In honor of the 21st Amendment, pour one out for the death of Prohibition, and don’t forget to check your science before you let 21st century fearmongers shut down the party.
