nabca daily news update (1/29/2018) · january 27, 2018 salt lake city — if you drink alcohol in...

Control State News VT: High-Tech Scanner Helps Vermont Liquor Control Bust Phony IDs

MS: Mississippi Could Let Distillers Sell Alcohol to Visitors

UT: Utah is taking a closer look at how and what people drink when it comes to alcohol

IA: Iowa distilleries thriving under new state law

UT: Funding at risk for program that equips parents to combat underage drinking

International News Estonia: Shortfall in alcohol excise duty inflow to total tens of millions

Lithuania: Stricter liquor rules give Lithuanians a severe hangover

India: The Changing Face of Alcohol Consumption in India

Public Health News Giving alcohol to children may fuel drinking addiction says study

Industry News Pernod Ricard renews Responsible Party campaign

Valuing the Work of Women In Wine: Lessons From New Hampshire

Daily News Why not regulate social media like tobacco or alcohol?

We may be drinking less wine, but it’s better wine

Guest Editorial: Smarter cars can curb the dangers of drunken driving

January 29, 2018

Please visit NABCA’s new website at www.nabca.org

SAVE THE DATE

Registration Is Now Open for the Legal Symposium! Visit www.nabca.org to register. MARCH 18-20, 2018 25th Annual Symposium on Alcohol Beverage Law & Regulation at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA.

Join government, legal and industry professionals for a symposium that offers the chance to hear the latest on legal issues related to alcohol beverages. Session topics currently planned include Here Comes the Judge, The Lens of Time: 1st versus 25th NABCA Legal Symposium, Trade Practices: A Civil Matter? plus many others. Watch for registration materials in the coming months! Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit is available for many states. For more information, go to www.nabca.org.

APRIL 11-13, 2018 Alcohol Policy 18: Evidence To Action -Building an Evidence-Based Social Movement Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel, Arlington, Virginia. For additional information on hotel, important dates and more, please visit the AP18 Conference website. AP18 Registration Now Open! APRIL 30–MAY 1, 2018 2018 RRForum National Conference - hosted by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission and will be held in Detroit. MAY 21-24, 2018 81st Annual Conference will be held at the Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix, AZ. Theme: Bridging Divides; For more information, visit www.nabca.com website.

JUNE 3-5, 2018 2ND Annual Beverage Alcohol Retailers Conference - Denver, Colorado Registration is open and sponsorship information is available at www.BevRetailersConference.com. Secure your early bird rate before prices increase on February 9.

Seating is limited.

http://www.nabca.org/



http://www.nabca.org/meeting/2018-annual-conference

NABCA Daily News Update (1/29/2018)

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JULY 18-20, 2018 8th Biennial Northwest Alcohol & Substance Abuse Conference Riverside Hotel, Boise Idaho

The Pre-Conference Sessions are on Wednesday. The official conference kicks off Thursday morning. Visit NorthwestAlcoholConference.org for more information.

NABCA HIGHLIGHTS

Native American Nations & State Alcohol Policies: An Analysis

Sunday Alcohol Sales (July 2017)

Alcohol Technology in the World of Tomorrow - (White Paper)

The Control State Agency Info Sheets. Please view website for more information.

NABCA Survey Database – now available for members on the website.

www.NABCA.org


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CONTROL STATE NEWS

VT: High-Tech Scanner Helps Vermont Liquor Control Bust Phony IDs

VPR By Howard Weiss-Tisman January 26, 2018

The Department of Liquor Control has collected more than 800 fake IDs since introducing a new high-tech detection scanner at bars and stores, mostly around the Burlington area.

The department received a grant to purchase 12 of the machines, which include a scanner and a sophisticated software program that matches the phony IDs against information from official state IDs.

Skyler Genest, Vermont Department of Liquor Control's director of compliance and enforcement, says as states introduce more and more technologies to prevent fraudulent IDs, counterfeiters are improving their own methods.

He says that makes it very hard for people who work in liquor stores or at bars to tell a fake ID from a real one.

"We're seeing a lot of really high-quality fakes out there now," Genest says. "Without this machine, even law enforcement and people who have been in the industry and trained for years really have to struggle to know which are real and which are fake."

Genest says the real IDs use holograms, raised letterings, microprinting and transparent windows. All of this, he says, can be pretty well copied by counterfeit ID companies.

When Genest slips a phony ID into the machine, a list appears on the screen, and there is a green check alongside a number of the ID card categories.

Those are the card attributes that the counterfeiters got right — but there are a few red X's from information that doesn't match up with the real card, and so the scanner rejects the ID.

"So if you look here, they got a lot of it right, and this card looks a lot like a real ID," he says about this example. "But the software caught what was wrong, and it says 'No, this is not a New York ID.'"

Genest says the scanner caught a near infrared pattern — which is actually impossible to see without a machine — so he says without the scanner, it is very hard to catch the fake IDs.

"So that's scary for us because that isn't even something we can teach people to pick up on if they don't have a machine," Genest says.

Each scanner costs about $8,000 and the department is lending them out to bars and stores.

Department of Liquor Control Deputy Commissioner Gary Kessler says the fake IDs cost about $100 each and most of them are purchased online.

Kessler says when college students buy them they often provide their real information, so the fake IDs match the college IDs. And that, he says, can lead to some real problems.

"The black market in these has become much more sophisticated — and the vast majority of them being produced overseas," Kessler says. "And young people are susceptible; they want to buy these. So they are providing their real name, often their real address.

"And so the problem there is that they're really opening themselves up to identity theft. These people that they're purchasing them from are already criminals, and now they have this real information, and what are they gonna do with it?"

Kessler says the scanners have been used mainly in the Burlington area, but that the department will be using them more across the state.

A press release from the Vermont Department of Liquor Control last fall noted that "[u]nder Vermont law the penalty for possession of a fake ID is a $299 fine and a 60-day driver's license suspension."


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MS: Mississippi Could Let Distillers Sell Alcohol to Visitors

WTVA By Madison Heil January 28, 2018

Mississippi lawmakers could allow visitors to buy alcohol directly from distilleries, after agreeing to let visitors buy beer at breweries last year.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi lawmakers could allow visitors to buy alcohol directly from distilleries, after agreeing to let visitors buy beer at breweries last year.

The House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday approved House Bill 995 , sending it to the full House for more debate.

Some Mississippi distillers offer tours to promote their brands. The bill, sponsored by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jeff Smith, a Columbus Republican, lets visitors buy liquor at distilleries, but not drink those bottles on site.

However, the measure says the distiller has to buy the alcohol from the Department of Revenue's Alcoholic Beverage Control warehouse in Madison County. That means the distillery would have to make the alcohol, ship it to the state, then buy it back.

The measure would take effect July 1.

UT: Utah is taking a closer look at how and what people drink when it comes to alcohol

Deseret News By Jennifer Graham January 27, 2018

SALT LAKE CITY — If you drink alcohol in Utah, Anna Buckner is tracking you and will be for the next four years.

But don’t look for her at a state liquor and wine store or in your neighborhood bar; most days she’s in her cubicle on the second floor at the state Department of Health, where she studies what and where Utahns are drinking and what it does to their health — part of research that could ultimately change how alcohol is sold in the state in coming years.

Buckner is an epidemiologist — Utah's first to solely focus on alcohol — and she's beginning her second year in a position funded for five years by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Utah was one of five states awarded grants to study alcohol consumption and evidence-based strategies to combat disease and death associated with alcohol. (The others are Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico and Colorado.) But it's not, Buckner points out, because Utah has an alcohol problem that exceeds that of other states.

Utah’s overall consumption is lower than most states, in part because of strict state governance of sales and a predominantly Mormon population that eschews alcohol.

But when Utahns do drink, many of them drink a lot at one time — up to seven or eight drinks in a single session of what's known as binge-drinking.

Also, in Utah, alcohol consumption is rising, as it is across the U.S., a trend that the authors of one recent study said comprises a public health crisis for the nation. In 2007, Utah's alcohol consumption was 2.076 gallons per capita; in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, it was 2.941.

Nationwide, alcohol use rose in almost every U.S. demographic between 2001 and 2013, a troubling development that has been overshadowed by the opioid epidemic, according to the report published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry in September.

More people die each year from alcohol and its effects than from drug overdoses, however.

In December, the CDC said that 63,600 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016. In 2014, the latest year for which federal statistics are available, alcohol was responsible for 88,000 deaths, the CDC says. Utah ranks 35th in the nation for alcohol-induced deaths.

Moreover, alcohol use contributes to a range of illnesses and chronic diseases, ranging from fetal disorders to hypertension, stroke, cardiovascular and liver disease and cancer.

The authors called for greater efforts to address factors that contribute to drinking and to develop intervention and prevention strategies to forestall the projected increases in chronic disease, especially among women, older adults, racial and ethnic minorities and the socioeconomically disadvantaged.


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Enter Buckner, who was already on the job when the study was published. Here’s what she’s learned in her first year on the job, and how her work might affect every Utahn who drinks.

Frequent and intense

Buckner, 33, earned two master’s degrees from the University of Montana (one in economics, one in public health) and was working as a Medicaid analyst for the state of Montana before moving to Salt Lake City one year ago.

The timing of the CDC grant was fortuitous: Her husband had just gotten a new job as an instructional designer at a community college and she was scanning jobs on the Utah government website when the epidemiologist opening was posted. Her supervisor, Anna Fondario, said Buckner stood out among a handful of candidates because of her education, government experience and stellar interview. She started the job Jan. 30, 2017.

Buckner is the only person at the Department of Health whose whole focus is alcohol. Her initial mission, as defined by the grant, is to “build capacity” — that is, to collect and review data already available about alcohol use in the state, and to determine if more should be collected.

Additionally, she will review evidence-based policies on reducing excessive alcohol use, to see which ones are currently used in Utah, and, when possible, to explore the possibility of implementing more. She is also to serve as a resource for any groups or individuals who need information on alcohol or alcohol-related harm in Utah.

Anna Fondario, epidemiology manager for the Department of Health, said Buckner is a conduit between her department, the Alcoholic Beverage Commission and the Department of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, all of which study different aspects of alcohol use.

“In Utah, we have a lot of different agencies that collect data related to alcohol, but we didn’t really have one specific designated person that could help bring all of that information together, to look at trends and also provide some of the best practice recommendations of how we want to approach it,” Fondario said.

Buckner's research may inform policymakers as they grapple with two issues expected to come before the Legislature this year: Whether to amend penalties for driving under the influence once the new blood alcohol content law takes effect on New Year’s Eve of this year. That law, which lowers the bar for a DUI violation to .05 blood alcohol, will be the most stringent in the nation. And, lawmakers may debate what to do about 3.2 percent beer sold in grocery and convenience stores if, as expected, major manufacturers stop making it.

Utah may seem like an odd state for the CDC to send dollars to study alcohol. In 2016, 31.7 percent of Utah adults reported current alcohol use and 12.5 percent reported binge drinking, compared to 55 percent and 16.9 percent of all U.S. adults, according to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey, a telephone survey conducted in all 50 states.

But, Buckner said, “Because we do have these lower use rates, as you would expect with a large population that abstains from alcohol, we still have some issues that we need to be aware of, because of the people who are drinking, they are doing so at a rate that puts them at an increased risk.”

She is speaking of people who are considered binge drinkers — generally defined as men consuming five or more drinks at a time, four for women — and people considered heavy drinkers, men who consume 15 or more drinks in one week, eight or more for women.

When it comes to these categories — and the frequency (how often one drinks) and intensity of drinking (how much one drinks in a single sitting) — Utah looks less like Utah, and more like the rest of the nation.

Utahns who engaged in binge-drinking last year did so more frequently than other Americans: 4.7 times per month compared to the national average of 4.4. They also drank more during a binge: 8.2 drinks during a binge, compared to 7.4 nationally.

“Here, those rates are much higher than you would expect. For frequency, we’re very close to the national average, and for intensity, we’re actually just above the national average,” Buckner said. “We also see, probably related to that, we have had in the past 10 years, we have seen an increase in alcohol poisoning deaths as well.”

Utah ranked seventh in the nation for alcohol poisoning deaths, according to the CDC.

'A variety of health harms'

Coming from a state where drinking rates are much higher than Utah, Buckner said she was surprised by the frequency and intensity of some Utah drinkers. But she was also interested to learn in her first year on the job that 9 out of 10 binge drinkers are not people with alcohol use disorders.

“To my mind, that gets at the issue. A lot of people who engage in this type of behavior don’t think they’re at risk for increased health harm. They think it’s only people who have an alcohol use disorder who are going to be negatively affected.


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“But really, when you engage in this type of behavior, you are at risk for a variety of health harms such as cancer and heart disease. It’s not just motor vehicle crashes or liver disease. It’s much wider than that.”

The World Health Organization considers alcoholic beverages a "known carcinogen."

“Nationally, it’s estimated that about 90,000 people die of alcohol attributable causes every year. That’s a big number. But there’s not a realization that it puts as many people at risk as it does,” Buckner said.

Looking ahead, Buckner plans to study the density of alcohol outlets in Utah and to learn if the presence of stores and establishments that serve alcohol are associated with higher rates of motor vehicle crashes, underage sales and violent crime.

That’s one of the evidence-based strategies that the CDC recommends to reduce harm from alcohol consumption, along with limiting hours and days of sale, and increasing alcohol excise taxes.

Utah operates 45 retail stores that sell spirits and wine; 20 of them are in Salt Lake City, according to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Buckner, who is married to a marathon runner, is health conscious, but confesses to taking the occasional social drink — although, she says, that’s been happening less frequently before she took this job. “Being in this position does make you re-evaluate your behaviors and how you think about alcohol; it definitely has changed my personal perspective,” she said.

IA: Iowa distilleries thriving under new state law

The Courier By Erin Murphy January 29, 2018

DES MOINES — To honor the anniversary of the first Iowa-made bourbon, Cedar Ridge Winery and Distillery each July hosts a festival on its grounds in Swisher.

Thanks to a new state law that allows craft distilleries to sell its product on-site, the most recent festival was a massive success: Cedar Ridge sold nearly 2,400 cocktails over the three-day weekend, a company executive said.

“In the past we’ve always just done bourbon samples, but this year we still did that and we were also able to sell bourbon cocktails,” said Jamie Siefken, general manager of Cedar Ridge in Iowa’s Cedar Valley. “It was just crazy. It was wall-to-wall.”

Similar success stories are being told across the state almost eight months after the effective start of the new law, for which small distilleries had spent years advocating.

Iowa distilleries have expanded, hired more employees and made more money now that they can sell their product in individual servings on-site, multiple companies said.

“Absolutely, it’s been a welcome change and it’s performed in the manner we thought it would,” said Garrett Burchett, owner of Mississippi River Distilling Co. in the Mississippi River town of LeClaire.

Before the state law was changed last summer, distilleries were not permitted to sell their product on-site. They could offer only samples.

Distilleries sought to change the state law not only to gain permission to sell their product on-site, but in their view to create a level playing field, since small wineries were allowed to sell their product on-site. Distilleries near Iowa’s borders also said the state law put them at a disadvantage because some neighboring states, like Illinois, do not prohibit distilleries from selling on-site.

After at least five years of lobbying state lawmakers, the law was changed during the 2017 legislative session and went into effect July 1. Then-Gov. Terry Branstad signed the bill into law during a ceremony at a small distillery in Cumming.

“It will allow our businesses across Iowa to grow, hire more employees and sell their product not only in Iowa, but all across the country,” Iowa Sen. Roby Smith, a Republican from Davenport, said in a statement at the time. “This is a great bill for Iowa’s economic development and small businesses.”

Distillery executives and state officials say the impact has been immediate.

Mississippi River Distilling has added roughly 10 new employees and transformed a bar space it had been using for tastings into an area where customers can now order drinks, Burchett said. Sales have increased under the new law, which has helped increase tourist visits, foot traffic and interest from regular customers, he said.


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“Really it’s the drink by the glass that changed things for us. We offer 20 cocktails that are made on-site for us, and it allows us to showcase the things that you can do with our spirits,” Burchett said. “It’s been a fantastic change.”

The new law has helped Cedar Ridge transform from being known primarily as a winery to a combination winery and distillery, Siefken said. The old bar at Cedar Ridge was torn down and replaced by a new one that is more functional for serving cocktails, Siefken said. The renovation started before the new law went into effect, but with the expectation it was coming.

He said revenue has increased roughly 10 to 15 percent under the new law.

“As far as day-to-day visitors go, revenues, that kind of stuff, it’s been wildly successful,” Siefken said. “We feel like the drinks by the glass was kind of that last obstacle to really put us where we would like to go on a local market. ... That was kind of the last obstacle that we had to overcome before we could grow the way we wanted to grow.”

Templeton Rye, in the western Iowa town of Templeton, underwent a $26 million expansion this past year. That project also began before the new state law went into effect, but with an eye toward its expected approval. The expansion included a museum and a 55,000-square-foot barrel aging warehouse.

The company did not return messages seeking comment, but an attorney for the company previously said the new law would have a positive impact on Templeton Rye.

“When people go to visit a winery or a brewery or a distillery, they do a tour, and then they want to have a taste, and then they want to buy a bottle,” Andy Anderson, an attorney for Templeton Rye, said in March 2017 while the legislation was being debated. “It’s harder to do this if you can’t do tasting, can’t sell a couple of bottles. This bill really gives us this opportunity.”

Previous attempts to change the law were rebuffed in part over opposition from beer wholesalers. A task force of government and industry officials met in the months leading up to the 2017 legislative session, and the proposed changes were approved during the session.

The top official at the state department that oversees and regulates alcohol sales said the law change has been a positive. The department said there has been an increase in statewide sales of native distilled spirits manufactured by small distilleries, but while the new state law may have played a role in that, it is not the only reason for the increase.

“(The new law) created new opportunities for our local entrepreneurs to expand their business models and have a new way to be competitive in today’s marketplace,” Steve Larson, administrator the state Alcoholic Beverages Division, said in an email. “It also maintains the integrity of the three-tier system, which is vital in protecting public health and public safety.”

UT: Funding at risk for program that equips parents to combat underage drinking

Deseret News By Sara Israelsen-Hartley January 27, 2018

SALT LAKE CITY — Research shows that parents are the No. 1 influence in keeping their kids away from alcohol, which is why public health professionals in Utah are reeling after hearing that funding for their nationally recognized educational campaign, "Parents Empowered," is potentially on the chopping block.

"We're really taken aback," said Doug Murakami, director of alcohol education for the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. "We know what we're doing, we're square over the target of parents."

In a meeting this past week at the Capitol, members of the Business Economic Development and Labor Appropriations Subcommittee said they had received a budget recommendation that perhaps the campaign was redundant.

They pointed to the 2016 bill, HB442, which loosened some alcohol restrictions in the state but provided $1.75 million for yearly alcohol prevention education of eighth- and 10th-graders. Parents Empowered's $2.3 million budget is tied to alcohol sales and revenue.

"The question we’re trying to answer is, are we redundantly running two things," said committee co-chairman, Sen. Dan Hemmert, R-Orem. "(We want to) do the best thing with the dollars we have and are the dollars best spent on direct services or public awareness? We don't know. We certainly haven't answered that question."

Coordinated efforts

But according to public health professionals, both approaches are essential, because they reach two different audiences: kids and parents.


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"I absolutely think we need both of them," said Lynette Schiess, substance abuse prevention and intervention specialist with the Utah State Board of Education.

"Research shows parents are the No. 1 reason kids don’t drink, but kids are really in charge of themselves," she said. "They need to have the skills and abilities to stand up to peer pressure and make choices themselves, so we need a well-rounded approach. We can’t just approach it from one side or the other, that's not systemic."

Schiess said they're currently gathering proposals and evaluating providers for the 2018-19 school year while working through the bill's actual wording — which requires a "school-based prevention presentation for students in grade 8 and grade 10." But is that a one-time event or an ongoing curriculum?

Research has shown that one-time prevention events are usually ineffective, said Schiess and Pat Bird, deputy director of operations for the Utah County Department of Drug and Alcohol Prevention and Treatment.

Even for adults, it's important to keep repeating the message against underage drinking, which is what Parents Empowered does through billboards, TV ads, public events, county fair booths and town hall meetings.

They've partnered with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Teams, Kneaders, the city of Murray, the Kearns library system, Intermountain Healthcare and the Maverik Center, among others, to pass out T-shirts and flyers and wrap buses and hospital walls with messages warning parents about the dangers of underage drinking.

Such efforts have been recognized by the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors with a National Exemplary Award and Utah's campaign has been replicated in Idaho, North Carolina and Wyoming, Bird pointed out in a letter he wrote to be forwarded by concerned voters to their legislators.

Committee co-chairman Rep. Curt Webb, R-Logan, said he doesn't want the public to think the committee has set out to attack good programs, but as legislators "we have every right to examine our programs and see whether they're effective."

However, having spent a fair amount of time talking with officials from the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, he said he's impressed with what he's seen so far.

"I have to say that it really looks like they're being quite effective in the things that they're doing," Webb said. "We're seeing pretty good numbers, good data and there's a lot of sentiment to keep it. Personally, I think we're going to have a hard time eliminating that, based on the things that we've seen."

Since the Parents Empowered campaign started 12 years ago, the rates of drinking in Utah have continued to fall among adolescents, with the exception of last year, when the rate of drinking among high school seniors rose from 13.6 percent to 14.7 percent.

Yet the number that worries Murakami the most is 42.6 — the percentage of kids who used alcohol in the last year and who reported that they drank it at home, with their parents' permission.

Officials got that number from the Student Health and Risk Prevention survey, asked of Utah students in grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 every two years.

Among the questions students answered was, "How wrong do your parents feel it would be for you to drink beer, wine or hard liquor regularly?"

Of the kids who answered "very wrong," only 14 percent had tried alcohol at least once. However, of the kids who said their parents would only find it "wrong," nearly 57 percent had tried alcohol.

"What that tells us," says Murakami, "is it's important for parents to really establish and set clear consistent rules about not drinking alcohol. If there's a little bit … of perceived parental acceptability, those kids are off drinking."

Parents over ads

Not only do parents need to set clear boundaries around alcohol, experts say they need to teach kids how to critique the advertisements themselves.

A recent study published in the Journal of Health Communication found that teens whose parents were critical of media messages about alcohol were more likely to think critically themselves about ads and social networking posts showing alcohol and less likely to endorse or engage with the alcohol brands online and offline.

"Parents have this incredible opportunity … to equip their children with critical thinking, which is a life-long mechanism that can prevent them from making some decisions that might not lead to healthy outcomes," said Marie Louise Radanielina Hita, lead author and now a lecturer and researcher in the marketing department at HEC Montréal. "I really strongly believe in the beneficial effect of parents and parental mediation on their children's life."


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Parental mediation is just a fancy way of referring to the ways parents talk to and interact with their children regarding media. If an ad shows a party where everyone's holding a can of beer and smiling, parents can teach their kids to ask questions like, "What are they trying to tell me or sell me?" "What are they not showing me?" or "Do I believe this is real life?"

That skepticism is healthy and important, and unlike cynicism, encourages seeking out more information to either confirm or reject their first observation, says Bruce Pinkleton, interim dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University and co-author of the study.

But Hita and her co-authors wanted to know if parental mediation is still influential when so much ad exposure now happens via social media, when parents aren't around to comment on it.

Researchers asked 658 undergraduates to agree or disagree with statements asking about the perceived reality of beer ads, the similarity to their own life, the extent that drinking would positively impact their social life, and a desire to do things seen in the ads.

They were also asked to recall strategies their parents had used in talking about ads, with questions like, "How often did your parents tell you about what ads are trying to do?" and "How often did your parents tell you they agree with something on TV?"

And true to their hypotheses, those whose parents embraced ads or did nothing to critique them were more likely to see alcohol ads and alcohol-related content on their social networks as real and exciting, leading to more engagement with the brand both online and off.

And the inverse was also true. If parents had critiqued ads and taught critical thinking skills to their kids, those students saw online alcohol ads and alcohol content as less real and desirable, and showed less interaction with the brand overall — even years later as a college student.

"The government says we need to talk to our kids about alcohol. … I've said for years that we need to (talk to our kids) about alcohol marketing," says David Jernigan, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "They see so much of it and parents can be powerful influencers and this study, to my mind, confirms that."

Kids will listen

In a recent Parents Empowered commercial, a teenage girl watches a movie with her family, sits beside them in the car, and reads on her bed, her parents smiling, but mute beside her.

"Seriously?" she asks, looking at the camera, "Just talk to me!"

The commercial reminds parents that there are moments every day to talk to their kids about alcohol, which is still the No. 1 drug among kids, says Jernigan.

Besides being illegal, underage drinking can alter young brain development as well as set up teens for a greater risk of alcohol dependency as they age.

In fact, 47 percent of people who begin drinking before age 14 reported lifetime dependence, compared to 9 percent who began drinking after the age of 21, according to a 2006 study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism also notes that while youth drink less than adults overall, individual teens often drink more, or binge drink, which can lead to things like injury, sexual assault or even death.

Yet, despite those concerns, many parents feel torn between being a parent and a friend, said MJ Corcoran, an educator and family coach for Family Talk about Drinking, a parenting program from Anehuser-Busch.

As kids age and grow closer to peers, parents often feel like they need to "get them back," and may try to become the "cool" parent by allowing their kids to do things that other parents might not, including providing alcohol, Corcoran said.

Not only is that illegal, but it sends mixed messages, she said. Instead, parents can focus on building healthy relationships at each stage of their child's life.

"As much as they roll their eyes at us," says Corcoran, "we're still their main source, their first influence."

Parents Empowered emphasizes bonding, boundaries and monitoring, and reminds parents that even if they don't know exactly what to say, they should just start talking and keep listening.

And because there are new parents created every day, there's an unending supply of people who need to hear that message, says Murakami, who hopes the appropriations subcommittee will recognize that and keep the program.

"There's so much work that needs to be done," he said "It's hard to even imagine not being able to continue that effort."


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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Estonia: Shortfall in alcohol excise duty inflow to total tens of millions

BNS By Aili Vahtla, Editor January 29, 2018

The estimated inflow of excise duty on alcohol has never missed the mark as severely as it has in the 2017 state budget, daily Postimees reports.

While the truth will be determined at the beginning of February, it can already be seen that there will be a shortage of €40-50 million compared to the €276.4 million included in last year's state budget, the paper said.

It is likely that last summer's significantly reduced estimation of €237.5 million will not be fulfilled either.

Slightly more is paid into the state budget in the form of excise duty on alcohol each year, and the increases have averaged around €14 million annually since 2010. 2017, however, will likely be the first year in more than a decade during which the inflow of excise duty on alcohol will be smaller than the year before.

While a total of €251 million in alcohol excise duty was paid into the budget in 2016, the same figure in 2017 is likely to be closer in size to the 2015 total of €222 million.

Lithuania: Stricter liquor rules give Lithuanians a severe hangover

ABC News By Liudas Dapkus, Associated Press Vilnius January 29, 2018

Lithuania — One of the heaviest drinking nations in the world is facing a severe hangover.

Lithuania's new liquor law has increased the legal drinking age from 18 to 20, banned alcohol advertising, and drastically curtailed opening hours for liquor stores. The law, in effect since Jan. 1, has stirred major controversy in this Baltic nation of 2.9 million people.

According to the World Health Organization, Lithuanians' per-capita alcohol consumption jumped more than 22 percent in a decade — from 14.9 liters (15.7 quarts) of pure alcohol annually in 2006 to 18.2 liters (19.2 quarts) in 2016. Authorities felt drastic measures were needed.

"We had to do something about it," said Health Minister Aurelijus Veryga, the main proponent of the new legislation. (Alcoholism) "makes Lithuania unattractive to foreign investments and tourism."

"Especially shocking are surveys showing that a third of our 15- and 16-year-olds consume alcohol regularly," Veryga noted.

With 36 per 100,000 people, Lithuania has the highest suicide rate in Europe, and suicide rates among alcoholics are consistently high, according to a study conducted by health specialists at Vilnius University.

"These were hard decisions," Veryga said, noting that opponents of the new law were trying "to make fools" of its supporters, including him.

Veryga became minister in late 2016 when his party — Union of Farmers and Greens Union — claimed most seats at the national elections. The party has pushed ahead with several conservative law changes in family policy, despite public protests and disagreements with coalition partners.

On a mural covering a wall of a popular Vilnius restaurant, Veryga is depicted as a Taliban fighter holding an AK-47 machine gun under the heading "the party is over," reflecting concerns that Lithuania is entering a dark era of radical bans and restrictions.

Some columnists suggested Lithuania should start censoring classic literature describing the consumption of spirits, while members of the opposition have already filed amendments seeking to repeal the harshest aspects of the law. Even the country's president, Dalia Grybauskaite, has called for amendments.


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"It reminds me of the Middle Ages and it causes huge international harm to Lithuania's image and reputation abroad," Grybauskaite said, speaking about pages having to be torn out of foreign magazines.

Publishers have rushed to remove — or cover with red stickers — liquor ads from foreign publications distributed in the country to avoid fines of 30,000 euros ($37,480) per ad.

Analysts point out that the new laws are being pushed through without any dialogue, disregarding unwanted side-effects, international practices or even common sense.

"Their political program is a collection of random ideas wrapped in Messianism and shrouded in hypocrisy," said Zilvinas Silenas, president of the Lithuania Free Market Institute, a Vilnius-based think tank. "But they are very consistently prohibitionist about regulating personal choice and lifestyle."

"The party has no identity except for a crusade against what people put in their mouths," Silenas added.

Restaurants have also been affected. Wine bottles are no longer allowed to be displayed after 8 p.m. as its labels are considered advertising and patrons have a choice of buying wine by the glass or having it served in a decanter.

"This is just ridiculous," said Arunas Starkus, study director at the Sommelier School of Lithuania, calling the new rules "simply irrational and naive."

"It takes decades to change people's customs and it has to be done by changing the culture, not by implementing restrictions and penalties," Starkus said.

Underage drinkers are still welcome at many downtown bars, with owners highly skeptical about the new regulations.

"Of course, we let in everybody, even those who are under 20," said Raminta Ruibyte, manager of a popular Vilnius bar. "We can offer them non-alcoholic beverages."

Minister Veryga, for his part, was unmoved.

"Nobody will solve these problems for us," Veryga said. "We must ... help the new generation grow up not thinking that alcohol is the main factor that unites and keeps our society together."

India: The Changing Face of Alcohol Consumption in India From locally brewed wines to craft beer, the alcohol consumer in India now seems spoilt for choice.

Little India By Vidula Chopra Rastogi January 29, 2018

The growing clamor for prohibition from some Indian states, the recent government policies like the ban on sale of alcohol on national highways, and the still widely prevalent belief of the pub culture being “anti-Indian” are not deterring Indians from guzzling their pick of favorite alcohol like never before.

It is no wonder then that the alcohol industry, segmented largely into wine, beer, imported alcohol, IMFL (India-made foreign liquor) and IMIL (India-made Indian liquor), is booming in the country. Many factors have contributed to this increase, including an improvement in living standards, globalization, increased exposure to different lifestyles and, perhaps most significantly, the increasingly relaxed social norms.

The technology boom in cities such as Hyderabad and Bengaluru has contributed to higher disposable income for the youth, which is often tied to an increase in alcohol consumption.

Magandeep Singh, the author of The Indian Spirit: The Untold Story of Drinking in India, feels that the reason for this rise in consumption is largely twofold — awareness and availability. “Be it education, jobs or holidays, more Indians are frequenting foreign shores and this prolonged exposure gives them more tactile contact with the beverage. Its availability certainly makes its access easier,” says the certified sommelier, who fell in love with wines while working in France.

The increase in consumption has been aptly matched by an increase in the number of alcohol manufacturers. While it was always produced on a large scale in India, most of it was restricted to low-quality toddy. However, as the taste for alcohol is getting more refined, it’s making the Indian manufactures sit up and take notice of the trend.

“Duties and levies notwithstanding, alcohol consumption has always been on the rise in India, but more pertinently, the quality of what Indians are imbibing is rising exponentially and that is a positive trend,” Singh points out.


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Manufacturers are also endeavoring to up the quotient by bettering the product locally as well. “We are consistently churning out more products that can compete internationally,” Singh adds.

A fifth of alcohol produced in the world is consumed by Indians, making the country the largest whisky market in the world. The whiskey market is growing by 30 percent year on year, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India.

India-made single malts such as the Bengaluru-based Amrut and Goa-based Paul John have gained significant international appreciation. Paul John was rated “Liquid Gold” by the Whisky Bible in 2013. A few years earlier, the same institution gave Amrut the ranking of being the third best whiskey in the world.

What has worked in the favor of these producers are climatic conditions in India. It is hard to dismiss the maturation advantages of brewing whiskey in tropical climes. Whiskey barreled in India matures three to five times quicker than that in Japan or Scotland, without compromise on quality. This has not gone unnoticed by the big players, who have been quick to spot the huge potential in the industry.

In a first for a multinational alcohol company, the Indian subsidiary of the $11 billion French firm Pernod Richard will be taking three Indian whiskies — Royal Stag, Imperial Blue and Blenders Pride — global.

About 30 per cent of Indians consume alcohol, out of which 4 to 13 per cent are daily consumers, according to the World Health Organization. With the minimum drinking age varying from 18 to 25 years across states, India had approximately 485 million people of legal drinking age in 2013. This is more than the population of the United States and Mexico combined. Another 150 million have been predicted to join this group by 2018.

And this is despite government policies that are seen as hostile towards alcohol consumption by many. The highway ban resulted in a huge slump as hundreds of bars across the country closed doors. The ban was soon lifted for all municipal areas in the country, but prohibition continues to be in force in states like Gujarat and Bihar, where the belief that alcohol-tinged lives are rife with debauchery and decadence hold ground.

The number of alcohol consumers, however, remains on the rise. And with that comes varying tastes. Another spirit that has shown a marked increase in consumption and international presence is the Indian beer. According to market research firm Euromonitor International, factors like an increase in disposable income, a growing culture of social drinking and a greater awareness of health issues related to drinking hard liquor are driving many to opt for beer.

The trend is hard to miss given the increasing number of microbreweries, a reflection of the surge in demand for craft beer. In addition, many stay away from hard liquor during the day, but beer is viewed as a light drink, safe to drink in the afternoon or early evening after work hours. The fact that it is also relatively inexpensive, and one can indulge in more drinks without hurting the wallet or the kidneys too much works perhaps as a bonus.

Naveen Raju, the Executive Director at Chancery Hotels in Bengaluru, has noticed a large increase in the consumption of beer, as compared to other alcohol. “Beer consumption in India is at around 8 per cent, while the international average stands at 25 per cent. Interest in beer is growing at an exponential rate. There is huge scope for growth, especially in the craft beer section, which is fresh and more experimental. What works for craft beer is that bottled beer carries taxes, while craft beer is brewed and served on the premises, and thus subject to lower taxation,” says Raju.

Despite the emergence of craft beer, the king of good times, Kingfisher, still reigns supreme. It is also the most exported beer brand, with a great lead over other brands like Haywards 5000.

Bira, relatively new to the game, is fast gaining traction too, both within the country and internationally. “As demand for beer increases, a corresponding increase in the production of barley, malt and hops, which are currently imported, will be greatly beneficial,” adds Raju.

Around the turn of the century, as drinking became more and more socially acceptable, the market for another alcohol — wine — opened up.

Although lagging behind whiskey, wine drinking has increased substantially in India. Clubs like the Indian Wine Club have played a significant role in promoting the drinking of wine as a lifestyle drink and touted its health benefits. Subhash Arora, the founder of the Indian Wine Club, has borne witness to the growth of the wine culture in India.

“Prior to 2000 wine was not easily available,” he says. “Brands like Sula and Grover had recently emerged, and imports were allowed only in 2001. However, import duties have always been high, and a bottle of Californian wine which retails for around 5 dollars in the United States, sells for triple that in India.”

With grape-growing conditions being favorable in certain parts of the country, more specifically Karnataka, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh, it made sense for Indian players to exploit this growing demand.


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Does Indian wine compare favorably with wine grown abroad? Arora thinks so. “Indian wine has vastly improved in quality in the last five years, thanks to improved technology, education, know-how, and the passion of the wine growers themselves. Smaller wineries like Krsma and York are now producing excellent wine. And the quality is only going to improve,” adds Arora. He is confident that within the next 20-30 years, India will be a wine-producing superpower, and government policies will gradually change to enable this growth.

PUBLIC HEALTH NEWS

Giving alcohol to children may fuel drinking addiction says study Study says there are no benefits or protective effects associated with giving teenagers alcohol.

The Health Site Agencies January 29, 2018

If you think that sharing a peg with your teenaged son or daughter may teach them how to deal with alcohol responsibly and protect them from engaging in heavy drinking, you may be wrong. Instead, the practice may lead them to addiction, researchers have warned.

Adolescents’ alcohol consumption, which is the leading factor for death and disability in teenagers globally, is of concern as this is when alcohol-use disorders are most likely to develop, the researchers said.

The study, led by researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia, showed that there were no benefits or protective effects associated with giving teenagers alcohol when compared with teenagers who were not given alcohol.

Instead, parental provision of alcohol was associated with increased likelihood of teenagers accessing alcohol through other sources, compared with teenagers not given any alcohol.

Importantly, teenagers supplied with alcohol by only their parents for one year were twice as likely to access alcohol from other sources the next year.

“In many countries, parents are a key provider of alcohol to their children before they are of legal age to purchase alcohol. This practice by parents is intended to protect teenagers from the harm of heavy drinking by introducing them to alcohol carefully. However, the evidence behind this has been limited,” said Richard Mattick, Professor at the varsity.

For the study, published in The Lancet Public Health journal, researchers recruited teenagers from secondary schools and their parents between 2010 and 2011.

The teenagers and their parents completed separate questionnaires every year from 2010 to 2016 including information about how teenagers accessed alcohol, binge-drinking levels, experience of alcohol-related harm and alcohol-abuse symptoms.

The six-year study of 1,927 teenagers aged 12 to 18 and their parents revealed that alcohol supplied by parents does not mitigate risk of its supply by other people, and that parental provision of alcohol did not appear to help teenagers deal with alcohol responsibly.

Source: IANS

INDUSTRY NEWS

Pernod Ricard renews Responsible Party campaign

The Spirits Business By Owen Bellwood January 29, 2018

Pernod Ricard has renewed its Responsible Party partnership with the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) for the eighth consecutive year, as it continues to combat harmful drinking.

The agreement, signed in Brussels today (29 January), aims to combat excessive alcohol consumption in students across Europe.


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Alexandre Ricard, chairman and CEO of Pernod Ricard, said: “The partnership we renewed with ESN on the Responsible Party programme is crucial for me. First, because it falls within Pernod Ricard’s unwavering policy in favour of an increasingly responsible and therefore convivial consumption; and second, because students are largely exposed to the risk of irresponsible consumption.”

The campaign has already been rolled out in 32 countries and has aided in the organisation of more than 580 “responsible soirées”, during which member students of the ESN network provided peers with advice on responsible drinking.

Recently, the Responsible Party programme, which has reached 367,000 European students, underwent an independent external evaluation.

The evaluation found that 88.8% of students surveyed said they found the initiative useful, while 61% of students confirmed they had changed their alcohol consumption habits as a result of the scheme.

Ricard said: “The various signs suggesting a reduction in binge drinking at the European level are a result of effective actions like ours, which associates committed industry players with associations and NGOs around relevant and useful prevention projects.”

According to the latest numbers from the European School Survey on Alcohol and other Drugs, in most countries alcohol consumption among students was lower in 2016 than in 2011.

In the UK, the London Ambulance Service (LAS) launched an alcohol campaign called Not An Ambulance last year, urging people to drink responsibly.

Valuing the Work of Women in Wine: Lessons From New Hampshire

Forbes By Cathy Huyghe, Contributor January 29, 2018

Sometimes an opportunity crosses your desk that is just too good to pass up.

Even if it means traveling to New Hampshire in the dead of winter.

That's exactly how it felt to receive an invitation to attend the annual Wine Week hosted by the New Hampshire Liquor Commission (NHLC), whose program this year featured the theme of Women in Wine, in particular Cristina Mariani-May, CEO of Banfi Vintners in Tuscany; Gina Gallo, third generation winegrower with E&J Gallo Winery; Cynthia Lohr, co-owner of J. Lohr Vineyards; and Dr. Laura Catena, a fourth generation Argentine vintner with Bodega Catena Zapata and her own Luca Winery in Mendoza, Argentina.

The opportunity to speak with them, individually and altogether, was rare and valued, especially in the context of a dialogue around women in the wine industry (a personal and professional focus of mine this year in particular). I now know to also add Nicole Brassard Jordan, Director of Marketing, Merchandising and Warehousing for the NHLC, to my running list of accomplished women to watch and to hear.

The highlights below are my takeaways from the event, and they dovetail with conversation overall about women in the industry. I've organized the takeaways into two parts -- first, two fundamental components of effective dialogue on the topic, and then two areas of concern and need for improvement.

Let's start with two factors that facilitate a productive dialogue: the participation of men at the table, and the voice of younger people whose own experience in the industry so far has been inclusive and supportive.

Men and Young People at the Table

Certainly this was a conversation about the advancement of women. Just as certainly, it was about encouraging and welcoming the participation of men. There is, I believe, a sincere interest in advancing more women to positions of equality -- equal in terms of pay, representation, and leadership roles. Given that most decision-making roles in the industry are currently held by men, their active participation is obviously elemental in order to effect the change.

There was also a sensitivity toward the men in our workplaces who contribute to a supportive and encouraging environment for us all, and who are impacted by the repercussions of the #MeToo movement (and its backlash) in the sense that they are now cautious and gun shy in their interaction with women, even about giving compliments, for fear of them being misconstrued.

It's a real concern, but withdrawing from dialogue won't help. We need to keep talking. And we probably all need to just take a breath.


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A breath of fresh air came from young people I spoke with, who expressed relief that the conversation wasn't negative toward men and that, instead, there was an awareness of keeping the pendulum from swinging too far in the opposite direction. They are new to the industry and, as an indication of hope for what's to come, they feel supported, heard, and respected in their roles.

Pay Equality and Owning Our Voice

Absolutely, there are well-intentioned men and women throughout the industry, and examples of successful and satisfying roles that women occupy.

There's also absolutely a gap, and most of us are hovering over that gap without knowing how to move forward.

The gap is between intention and execution -- between the intention for women to be equal contributors and partners in the business of wine, and the actual, operational execution of that intention.

How do all of us, not just some of us, get to the other side of the gap?

We can start with learning from the examples of those who have reached the other side and highlighting them. We need more of those examples, and we need to be part of them to know that they’re relevant to us personally.

In addition, we can take concrete steps toward improving two areas of concern: income discrepancies and owning our voice.

Cynthia Lohr, a strong advocate of women's advancement whose professional experience is rooted in the tech industry, expressed the need to address the pay gap between women and men. Laura Catena also spoke of addressing that gap within her own company: once she pointed out that the discrepancy existed among employees, her father immediately endorsed its correction. He was ready and willing; the catalyst was her pointing it out.

It seems like a by-the-numbers change for a business to make -- and it is -- and companies who proactively execute the change can serve as models for others to follow.

There is a less obvious factor also at play here, however: owning our voice, and the confidence to ask for the pay raise ourselves when there isn’t a senior person advocating for it on our behalf. It's a psychological barrier that other women have pointed out, and I’ve experienced myself, that is often rooted in a lack of exposure to female role models who themselves were paid fairly and equally for their work. There just were -- are -- not very many of them for us to emulate or learn from. So owning the voice that advocates on our own behalves is a learned behavior and one that doesn't feel immediately natural, not after decades of internalizing the message that the work women do is valued less in dollar amounts.

For that reason, I believe that financial education can be a central tenet of the movement to advance more women in the wine industry: it's about the confidence to own our voice about the value we bring to the business of wine.

The road ahead in this conversation is long and it won't always be smooth. But, as I witnessed in New Hampshire last week, we already have momentum that is fueled by good intentions. The work now is to execute on the bigger scale.

DAILY NEWS

Why not regulate social media like tobacco or alcohol? Facebook, Google and others can foster addiction – and can be used to undermine democracy

The Guardian By Roger McNamee January 29, 2018

We were warned. The venture capitalist and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen wrote a widely read essay in 2011 titled “Why Software Is Eating the World”. But we didn’t take Andreessen seriously; we thought it was only a metaphor. Now we face the challenge of extracting the world from the jaws of internet platform monopolies.

I used to be a technology optimist. During a 35-year career investing in the best and brightest of Silicon Valley, I was lucky enough to be part of the personal computer, mobile communications, internet and social networking industries. Among the highlights of my career were early investments in Google and Amazon, and being a mentor to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg from 2006 to 2010.


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Each new wave of technology increased productivity and access to knowledge. Each new platform was easier to use and more convenient. Technology powered globalisation and economic growth. For decades, it made the world a better place. We assumed it always would.

Then came 2016, when the internet revealed two dark sides. One is related to individual users. Smartphones with LTE mobile infrastructure created the first content-delivery platform that was available every waking moment, transforming the technology industry and the lives of 2 billion users. With little or no regulatory supervision in most of the world, companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Alibaba and Tencent used techniques common in propaganda and casino gambling, such as constant notifications and variable rewards, to foster psychological addiction.

The other dark side is geopolitical. In the United States, western Europe and Asia, internet platforms, especially Facebook, enable the powerful to inflict harm on the powerless in politics, foreign policy and commerce. Elections across Europe and in the US have repeatedly demonstrated that automated social networks can be exploited to undermine democracy.

The Brexit referendum and the US presidential election in 2016 also revealed that Facebook provides significant relative advantages to negative messages over positive ones. Authoritarian governments can use Facebook to promote public support for repressive policies, as may be occurring now in Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines and elsewhere. In some cases, Facebook actually provides support to such governments, as it does to all large clients.

I am confident that the founders of Facebook, Google and other major internet platforms did not intend to cause harm when they adopted their business models. They were young entrepreneurs, hungry for success. They spent years building huge audiences by reorganising the online world around a set of applications that were more personalised, convenient and easier to use than their predecessors. And they made no attempt to monetise their efforts until long after users were hooked. The advertising business models they chose were leveraged by personalisation, which enabled advertisers to target their messages with unprecedented precision.

But then came the smartphone, which transformed all media and effectively put Facebook, Google and a handful of others in control of the information flow to users. The filters that give users “what they want” had the effect of polarizing populations and eroding the legitimacy of fundamental democratic institutions (most notably, the free press). And the automation that made internet platforms so profitable left them vulnerable to manipulation by malign actors everywhere – and not just authoritarian governments hostile to democracy.

As Andreessen warned us, these companies, with their global ambition and reach, are eating the world economy. In the process, they are adopting versions of Facebook’s corporate philosophy – “move fast and break things” – without regard for the impact on people, institutions, and democracy. A large minority of citizens in the developed world inhabits filter bubbles created by these platforms – digital false realities in which existing beliefs become more rigid and extreme.

In the US, approximately one-third of the adult population has become impervious to new ideas, including demonstrable facts. Such people are easy to manipulate, a concept that former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris calls “brain hacking”.

Western democracies are unprepared to deal with this threat. The US has no effective regulatory framework for internet platforms, and lacks the political will to create one. The European Union has both a regulatory framework and the necessary political will, but neither is adequate to the challenge. The EU’s recent judgment against Google – a record $2.7bn fine for anti-competitive behaviour – was well conceived, but undersized. Google appealed, and its investors shrugged. It may be a good start, but it was clearly insufficient.

We are at a critical juncture. Awareness of the risks posed by internet platforms is growing from a small base, but the convenience of the products and psychological addiction to them are such that it may take a generation to effect change from the user side, as it did with anti-smoking campaigns. Recognition of the corrosive effect of platform monopolies on competition and innovation is greater in Europe than in the US, but no one has found an effective regulatory strategy. Awareness that the platforms can be manipulated to undermine democracy is also growing, but western governments have yet to devise a defence against it.

The challenges posed by internet platform monopolies require new approaches beyond antitrust enforcement. We must recognise and address these challenges as a threat to public health. One possibility is to treat social media in a manner analogous to tobacco and alcohol, combining education and regulation.

For the sake of restoring balance to our lives and hope to our politics, it is time to disrupt the disrupters.


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We may be drinking less wine, but it’s better wine

The Washington Post By Dave McIntyre Columnist, Food January 29, 2018

Boomers are buying less wine. Millennials aren’t picking up the slack. As a result, the growth of wine sales is slowing, while buying patterns are shifting in ways that are sending chills down the collective spine of the U.S. wine industry.

We’re also buying more wines in cans and other alternatives to bottles. And while the vast majority of wine continues to be purchased at retail outlets such as grocery stores and wine shops, more and more is sold “direct to consumer,” or “DtC,” either at the winery or over the Internet, shipped directly to our homes.

Such are the pronouncements, prognostications and thunderings of a blizzard of annual reports issued this time of year by a cottage industry of trend-spotters. Just as Dumbledore could pull a thought from his ear and drop it in a birdbath to reveal the secrets of the past, these soothsayers pore over sales data of the past year to divine hints of the future.

In the short term, “business is pretty good,” says Rob McMillan, author of the Silicon Valley Bank’s annual report on wine industry trends. The booming economy and tax reform mean more discretionary income for consumers, and “getting those few extra dollars in your paycheck through fiscal stimulus or tax relief is probably good” for the wine industry, McMillan said in a videocast of his annual findings on Jan. 17. There’s logic to this. I’ve found myself drinking more as I watch the news.

But McMillan sounded an alarm. Growth in U.S. wine consumption is slowing after a 20-year run spurred by the famous 60 Minutes report in 1991 on the “French Paradox” and wine’s health benefits. The growth in sales flattened to just 0.3 percent last September, a low not seen in decades. In part, this is because we are drinking less wine, but better — sales under $9 a bottle have decreased, while we are buying more in the $15 to $20 range. “Something is changing,” McMillan said.

Boomers are retiring to fixed incomes, inclined to spend less per bottle and drink through their cellar collections. Millennials, who in the past seemed to have disposable income to spend in restaurants and on travel, are now seen as taking on debt as they purchase homes and start families. That leaves the more narrow band of gainfully employed Gen Xers to carry the brunt of wine demand. All three groups are increasingly focused on value — that $15 to $20 range.

Firefighter Chris Oliver at a winery in Santa Rosa, Calif., in October 2017. Visits to California wineries decreased last year, no doubt in part because of the devastating wildfires. (Jae C. Hong/AP)

And where is that demand going? We are buying more wines from Oregon, France and New Zealand, especially, while sales of wines from Australia, Spain, Chile and Argentina actually declined.

Our definition of “wine country” keeps expanding. Consumer visits to wineries increased last year in New York, Virginia and Oregon, but decreased from 2016 levels in Washington state and Napa and Sonoma counties in California.

The lower numbers in Northern California are no doubt a result of October’s wildfires. “We lost six weeks of sales in our haymaking period,” Jake Bilbro, owner and winemaker at Sonoma County’s Limerick Lane Cellars, said Jan. 19 at the annual Zinfandel Experience conference in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, wineries shipped 5.78 million cases of wine directly to consumers last year, at an average cost of $38.75 a bottle, bypassing the traditional three-tier system of distributors and wine stores. That was a 15.3 percent increase over 2016, according to an annual report by Wines & Vines magazine and ShipCompliant by Sovos, a company that helps wineries navigate the labyrinth of state laws governing wine shipments.

Oregon led the surge with a 31 percent jump over 2016, followed by Washington state with 26 percent and Sonoma County with a 25 percent increase. The rise came despite the effect of October’s fires, which depressed direct-to-consumer sales by $20 million in Napa County alone, the report estimated.

And what will we be drinking in 2018, aside from more Oregon wine? According to Nielsen, “This year, alternative packaging, rosé and prosecco should remain top of mind for wine producers and distributors, as well as retailers, as three areas of high growth sub-segments within wine.” Well, okay, that’s what we’ll be sold, not what we’ll be drinking. But sales of wine in cans increased nearly 60 percent last year (but still are only 0.2 percent of all U.S. wine sales), Nielsen said, so we can expect to see more wine in cans as producers strive to stand out in the crowded market. More premium wine in boxes, too, which increased 15 percent last year to about 10 percent of all wine sales.

And rosé? I could drink that all day. And all year.


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Guest Editorial: Smarter cars can curb the dangers of drunken driving

The Wilson Times January 28, 2018 Greensboro News & Record

In the future, your car might not start if you’ve had too much to drink.

Would that development give too much power to a machine, or justify itself by saving lives?

The day for that policy decision may arrive sooner than you think.

The concept is called a Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety. Research is underway, with two promising approaches under consideration.

One would detect the alcohol content in the driver’s breath, distinguishing his or her exhalations from those of other passengers.

A second requires the driver to press a finger against a monitoring device that can measure alcohol in blood just beneath the skin.

These may be futuristic technologies, but the toll in deaths, injuries and damage from drunken driving is so high that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recommended in a new report that, “Once the cost is on par with other existing automobile safety features and is demonstrated to be accurate and effective, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should make DADSS mandatory in all new vehicles.”

The numbers are sobering. In 2016, the report says, 10,497 people were killed in alcohol-related automobile crashes in the United States. That’s nearly equal to the number of people murdered by firearms — a pathology that draws much more attention.

Nevertheless, drinking-related tragedies are all too common. Last month in High Point, two high school students died after the vehicle they were riding in ran off the road and hit a tree. The 19-year-old at the wheel was charged with driving after consuming alcohol — and two counts of involuntary manslaughter.

A person younger than 21 is not allowed to drive after consuming any alcohol. For adults, the legal limit in North Carolina and most states of 0.08 percent blood-alcohol content is too high, the academies say in their report. They want that level dropped to 0.05 percent, and they want “robust, visible enforcement efforts” — including more frequent sobriety checkpoints.

They call for the establishment of special DWI courts in every jurisdiction. Guilford County District Court was doing that last year to reduce a backlog but was forced to stop when the state drastically cut funding for emergency judges. Across North Carolina, many DWI cases are dismissed every year because of delays in returning lab tests or other problems. Because so many drunken drivers are repeat offenders, they will drive again unless strong and timely punitive action is taken. Our state can’t commit the resources to accomplish that now. Does the political will exist to set up more sobriety checkpoints and enforce a stricter DWI standard?

The academies also recommend more alcohol treatment programs, more public awareness and greater efforts to stop underage drinking and sales of alcohol to people who already appear to have had too much.

They note that in 2015, 28 percent of alcohol-related car crashes were caused by drivers ages 21-25, so efforts aimed at encouraging more responsible behavior in that age group are warranted.

Other recommendations would be politically difficult to enact, such as significantly increasing alcohol taxes and limiting the hours and locations of alcohol availability. In our society, alcoholic beverages will remain widely accessible to people 21 and older, and the alcohol industry will use its considerable influence to oppose higher taxes.

When alcohol is abused, law enforcement and legal consequences should follow, but political leaders are reluctant to provide enough resources to maintain consistent efforts to catch and punish drunken drivers.

So, as fanciful as it sounds, giving our cars the power of not starting when the driver has had too much to drink — and the emergence of self-driving vehicles — may provide the ultimate solution to this deadly problem.


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