The notion that alcohol beverages and tobacco are "gateways" through which young people inevitably move on to marijuana and more dangerous narcotics has taken firm hold in the US among many control advocates, policymakers and the media. Over the last two decades, the gateway theory has helped to fuel zero-tolerance prevention efforts, near-paranoia about marketing allegedly aimed at youth and hand-wringing over the "binge-drinking epidemic." But a close look at actual initiation rates of tobacco/alcohol and drug use in the last century "identifies a way in which the gateway phenomenon appears to be unreliable," according to a pair of statisticians from the National Development and Research Institutes in a recent issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Basically, they found that "the probabilities of progression between stages have shifted dramatically across birth cohorts." That means alcohol/tobacco may have acted as gateways for some generations, but certainly not for all, and that policies based on such a simplistic theory are therefore flawed.

Before the 60s, very few who smoked or drank ever took up marijuana, much less hard drugs. "The gateway phenomenon emerged in the 1960s," the authors noted, when a larger number of young people took up alcohol/tobacco, then moved on to marijuana and other drugs. "However" the authors found, "persons born since the early 1960s, who came of age in the 1980s, were substantially less likely to progress to marijuana, cocaine powder, crack and heroin use." (They did not look at use of inhalants, amphetamines or hallucinogens. That

The experience of 7,770 Canadian women "suggests that the link between alcohol and violence may indeed be a spurious one in which masculinity is acted out through both heavy drinking and attacks and degradation of female partners," concluded the authors of a recent study. While heavy drinking by these women's spouses had appeared to predict violence, when the men's attitudes about violence or control over wives were "factored out, the effect of alcohol abuse became non-significant." This conclusion was similar to the one we reported in December INSIGHTS that even heavy drinking turned out to be a "poor predictor of intimate partner violence overall" when race, gender and other factors were considered. The conclusion is also supported by other studies cited by the authors of this Canadian research that challenge the widely-held belief that drinking is a causal or genuinely significant factor in leading people to act violently.

In the Canadian study, heavy drinking appeared to predict violence at first. Only 2% of the husbands who were abstainers acted violently toward their wives, compared to 11% among men who were frequent heavy drinkers. Several socio-economic factors, education and employment, and "attitudes supportive of male dominance over women" were also "important predictors of violence," but "attitudes have the strongest predictive power," the authors concluded. In fact, while a husband's heavy drinking appeared to increase the risk of violence by 2.4 times in the authors' model, women who said their husbands engaged in a lot of name-calling and put downs, were jealous and kept them from other men, limited their contact with other people and/or prevented the wife from access to income were 5 to 14 times more likely to experience violence than women whose husbands did not have those attitudes. When socio-demographic variables are analyzed together with the husbands

While many colleges and even fraternities are adopting "alcohol-free" residences for students, they should take a close look at a recent evaluation of such policies that raises serious questions about how effective they are in reducing student consumption and/or alcohol problems. Indeed, this survey of 2,555 students on 52 campuses found that students who lived in "alcohol-free" housing actually said they drank more often and more heavily than those who lived in "unrestricted housing." What

This new analysis shows once again that alcohol beverage control policies are based on scientifically shaky ground, if any ground at all. Two European researchers recently took a fresh look at the mathematical theories and assumptions that have driven alcohol control policy efforts for decades. Those theories, put forward by S. Ledermann and OJ Skog in 1964 and 1980 respectively, basically postulated that in any given population, trends in average alcohol beverage consumption are directly linked to trends in heavy and abusive drinking in the same population. Policy advocates have long embraced these theories to support control measures to reduce average consumption rather than focus on problem drinking or problem drinkers. Hence the control advocates support higher taxes, restrictions on sales, advertising and marketing, reducing the number of alcohol beverage sales outlets, etc. But this fresh look at Ledermann/Skog found "there is little empirical evidence, especially recent evidence, to support Skog's key assumptions," which drive control policy. Test after test of Skog's assumptions and predictions were "inconclusive," according to the authors. They even cited one study that found "the percentage of heavy drinkers often did not decrease with decreasing mean consumption, but rather, increased." That's the exact opposite of what control advocates would claim.

The authors understand the importance of their findings, noting that Skog's theory has been "very influential

Since the Bush administration’s top priority is cutting taxes, US brewers believe their chances to roll back the 1991 federal excise take hike (the beer tax doubled from $9/bbl to $18/bbl under Bush’s father) are the best they’ve ever been. "We believe that because most of the other taxes that were raised in the 1990 budget summit have been repealed, as a matter of fairness the beer tax should be rolled back. We intend to pursue that very aggressively," Beer Institute president Jeff Becker told INSIGHTS. A rollback of the beer tax would not be vulnerable to the criticism that it principally benefits the rich. Indeed, the brewers can legitimately argue that this is a tax break that will particularly benefit the middle-class, which may even attract more Democratic votes than some other tax cut proposals.

What about liquor and wine? "The Wine Institute plans to pursue a rollback to the 1990 tax level," of 17 cents/gallon compared to the current $1.07/gallon, senior vice-president Bobby Koch told INSIGHTS. "We will be just as energetic in pursuing a rollback, if not more so, than the beer industry," he added. Koch also suggested the possibility of an industry-wide attempt to roll back beer, wine and spirits taxes, a unique opportunity to forge some rarely-achieved alcohol beverage industry unity. Mark Gorman, senior vice-president of government affairs at DISCUS, said the distillers are of the same mind: "We are extremely interested in the prospect of excise tax reform. We have talked to a lot of members of Congress about it and are

analyzing rollbacks to various levels." (The

spirits tax increased from $12.50 per proof gallon

to $13.50 in 91. Distillers were hit with a larger $2-per-proof-gallon increase in 1986.) "We are looking at different ways and the right opportunity to move excise tax legislation along."

While the alcohol beverage suppliers plan to pursue tax cuts, you have to keep in mind they’re not alone. The Wall Street Journal noted in a recent front-page article: "Bush Tax Cuts Send Corporate Lobbyists Into a Feeding Frenzy." In other words, the line is long when it comes to corporations seeking tax relief in 2001. One possibility: all or most non-income tax issues will be held off for a second tax bill after income tax issues are resolved. Based on 1999 volume, rolling back beer, wine and spirits taxes to their 1990 levels would have cost the government approximately $1.8 bil, $495 mil, and $273 mil respectively that year.

Meanwhile, "more tax threats are likely this year" at the state level because for the first time in several years "there is not enough money to go around," AB vice-president of state affairs Mark Boranyak wrote in a recent AB publication. "The question faced by many general assemblies will be whether to raise taxes, cut services or some combination of the two." He pointed to several states with "serious budget dilemmas": Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, and

Tennessee. Some extreme proposals are already being advanced in several states. For example, the governor of Vermont advocated a penny-a-can beer tax to pay for a $3 million anti-heroin program. In Minnesota, a state senator pushed for a nickel-a-drink tax to help pay for costs

associated with alcohol abuse. And in Louisiana, a state senator is looking for an alcohol tax

increase to help fund a pay raise for teachers. Note that these proposals for large tax hikes all are "earmarked," designed to help pay for other state programs. While the Minneapolis Star Tribune rated passage of the Minnesota proposal as unlikely, it is too early to tell what will happen in other states. But it does look like a period of increased state excise tax battles has already begun.