"The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS)" is the Trade Association for "America's favorite brands of distilled spirits." They try to promote pro-liquor causes such as reducing tariffs on alcohol and increasing the number of states selling it Sunday. Here is where it gets interesting: their site is at: www.discus.health.org/ which is (obviously) a subdomain of health.org. If you go to health.org there is no mention of DISCUS involvement. The health.org 'about' page implies that the site is jointly run by several Federal Agencies. Health.org itself seems devoted to stopping drugs in their seedy illegal tracks. Take a look at: "Marijuana: Weeding out the hype" or this "Prevention Alert" which suggests "Skewed articles can be used in the classroom to provide 'teachable moments' in seeking the facts about... ecstasy." Is it troubling that "the trade association for... America's favorite brands of distilled spirits" is operating behind the scenes of the 'government sponsored' anti-drug site with no disclosure? Would it be too jaded to conclude that when health.org commands teens: "If you're smoking marijuana--stop!" that the puppet master is more worried about the fierce competition presented by non-alcoholic drugs than they are genuinely concerned about the health.org of young people?
posted by limitedpie on Mar 8, 2002 - 22 comments