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Statistics on Alcohol (Drinking, Driving, Underage, Abuse) Often Misleading

by David J. Hanson, Ph.D.

Statistics on alcohol use and abuse must be accurate if public policy is to be based on reality. Unfortunately, many of those who collect and interpret statistics and other data have a vested self-interest in exaggerating the extent of alcohol problems in order to justify higher budgets, larger staffs and increased political influence. This is true for both government agencies and private alcohol activist groups.

Although the line between government alcohol agencies and private activist groups becomes blurred because of their close cooperation, information will be presented here separately for:

  1. Government Alcohol Agencies and
  2. Private Alcohol Agencies and Groups

I. Government Alcohol Agencies

Federal Government Research: Can It be Trusted? - The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is firing a prestigious research organization because its evaluation study found the ONDCP’s anti-drug ads might be both ineffective and counterproductive. ONDCP wants different findings.

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention: What You Didn’t Know - Identifies some of the consequences of this federal agency’s indifference and disregard for scientific evidence.

The Economic Costs of Alcohol Abuse - The welfare, if not the survival, of alcohol agencies depends largely on promoting the widespread belief that the economic costs caused by alcohol abuse are enormous and growing rapidly.

Alcohol Abuse Statistics: A Report - A report by the U.S. Department of Education (Raising more Voices than Mugs) is so full of consistently erroneous, deceptive and misleading statistics and assertions that, at the very least, it should no longer be distributed.

Alcohol Abuse: The Economic Costs - Federal estimates for the costs of alcohol abuse come perilously close to fiction - or even fraud.

Government’s “Alcohol Information” - The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s Teacher’s Guide (Understanding Alcohol) is full of errors, omissions, and misleading assertions that misinform and mis-educate students. Both the American public and our children deserve much better.

Federal Agencies: Temperance Approach toward Alcohol - Federal agencies make numerous false and misleading assertions in an effort to stigmatize alcohol and reduce its consumption, even among those who are legally able to drink alcohol.

Federal Government Research: Can it be Trusted? - The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is firing a prestigious research organization because its evaluation study found the ONDCP’s anti-drug ads might be both ineffective and counterproductive. ONDCP wants different findings.

Alcohol Research and Statistics: Deceptive Reports - Identifies some of the deceptive assertions about alcohol made by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and other federal agencies.

Government Attacks Drinking with Junk Science - Federal agencies repeatedly make false and misleading assertions about alcohol in an apparent attempt to support federal policies on alcohol.

Intoxicated Driver Statistics - Responsibility in DUI Laws has analyzed and corrected traffic fatality statistics presented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Alcohol Agencies and The Truth - Federal alcohol agencies should present all relevant scientific data regarding alcohol and drinking, whether or not that evidence support their own organizational agendas. They have a long history of not doing so.

II. Private Alcohol Agencies and Groups

Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth: Its Objectives and Methods - Identifies a number of deceptive and misleading political reports presented by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) as research reports.

Early Onset Drinking: What Research Says & What Anti-Alcohol Activists Say It Says - Alcohol activists misrepresent the results of research on early onset drinking and also never mention the research evidence that those who begin drinking later than most of their peers are more likely to experience drinking and alcohol-related problems.

The Marin Institute: An Anti-Alcohol Activist Organization - This group is guilty of repeatedly misrepresenting statistics to the American public.

AMA’s Alcohol Information and Statistics - Although it’s a professional medical organization, the American Medical Association (AMA) is also a major political organization. In its efforts to influence public policy, the AMA plays fast and loose with facts.

The American Medical Association (AMA): Abstinence Motivated Agenda - The American Medical Association isn't an impartial, unbiased association. It has social and political agendas that it actively pursues. The AMA spends extensive time and money influencing the political process in order to further its agendas.

Explosion of Alcohol Ads on Cable Television - There’s been an explosion in the exposure of young people to alcohol beverage ads on cable television, claims the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY), an anti-alcohol activist organization devoted to creating public “outrage“ against alcohol advertising.

Selling Booze to Our Babies - Because scientific evidence consistently fails to support Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth’s assertion that alcohol ads cause young people to drink or to drink more, it resorts to presenting a plethora of irrelevant and misleading statistics about alcohol ads.

Doing a Number on Drunk Drivers - The dramatization of alcohol-related problems is more important than accuracy when it comes to TV's social-problems journalism.

Alcohol-Related Traffic Fatalities - Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) interprets alcohol-related traffic statistics in a misleading and deceptive manner in order to support its demand for a $1 billion dollar program of mandated road blocks

Mothers Against Drunk Driving: A Crash Course on MADD - Identifies some of the “junk science” used by MADD.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest: Not Scientific and Not in the Public Interest - Reports some of the “science” used by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

 

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