Gus and Ron --
    The original posting is from someone writing a book specifically about
wine, which I suspect wants to tout that wine is less likely to lead to
drinking-driving (tell me if I'm wrong, Martin).
    I agree with both of you entirely that who drinks the beverage, under
what circumstances, is much more likely to affect the relation with
drinking-driving than anything in the beverage itself.  (In my view,
although there is slightly more evidence to argue over here, the same is
true concerning heart-protective and heart-hurting effects of alcohol.  The
best evidence at this point is that it is the alcohol rather than anything
else in wine which provides any such effects.)
      But producers and friends-of-the-beverage are always wanting to make
this argument that theirs is the beverage of moderation.  In particular, it
was the curiosity of Loran Archer, when he was director of the alcoholism
agency in California and was getting this argument from the brewers, that
got me to look at this issue first.  (Robin Room, Beverage type and drinking
problems in a national sample of men, Drinking and Drug Practices Surveyor
12:29-30, 1976.)  My conclusion was that it depended on how you looked at
the data: "the data do not seem to identify any one beverage as being the
'beverage of moderation', in the sense that users or heavier users of it are
less likely than users or heavier users of other beverages to have social or
health problems related to drinking".
    The data I was using was a US national sample of 978 males 21-59,
interviewed in 1969 -- whether or not they had a high tangible consequences
score, i.e., drinking-related problems in the last 3 years with spouse,
friends, police, job, fiannces or health.  Among those who used each
beverage type at least monthly, the % with high tangible consequences was
nearly the same -- 23% for beer and for liquor, 20% for wine.  Among those
using the beverage type in a "high maximum" pattern (i.e., including
drinking 5+ drinks at a sitting at least once in a while), 36% of beer
drinkers, 37% of wine drinkers, and 31% of spirits drinkers reported high
tangible consequences.  But more of those with high tangible consequences
were "high maximum" beer (76%) and spirits (60%) drinkers than were "high
maximum" wine drinkers (20%).  Then again, these turned out to be almost
exactly the proportions between the beverages in terms of how many drank
that beverage in a "high maximum" pattern.
    That is, in this sample, whether you ever drank 5+ drinks of a
particular beverage was strongly predictive of whether you experienced
drinking-related problems.  Fewer males under 60 drank wine in this pattern
(10%) than drank beer (41%) or liquor (37%) in this pattern.  But those who
did drink wine in this pattern were just as likely as the others to
experience drinking-related problems. Robin


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gus L. Seligmann" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: den 13 januari 2001 13:38
Subject: Re: DUI and wine


     Based on my observations of my misspent youth and other
discontents the spin Roizen has put on beer consumption makes more
sense than the original argument.  I am aware that one should never
generalize from a single example but I did it anyway.

            Gus Seligmann

Subject:                Re: DUI and wine
To:                     [log in to unmask]

--------------- Text of forwarded message ---------------
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
Approved-By:  Ron Roizen <[log in to unmask]>
Date:         Fri, 12 Jan 2001 14:35:37 -0800
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
Sender: Kettil Bruun Society <[log in to unmask]>
From: Ron Roizen <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: DUI and wine
To: [log in to unmask]

Robin --

1.  It's interesting that this paper suggests both that beer "accounts for"
the bulk of alcohol-related problems and that hazardous beer drinkers "are
more likely" to be youthful, single, males.  Might we switch those verb
forms around, however, and say instead that hellraising young males
"account for" most alcohol-related problems and that these gents are "more
likely to be" beer drinkers?

2.  Abstract (paper too?) ignores the strong aggregate-level trend
relationship between spirits consumption and cirrhosis mortality -- also an
"alcohol-related problem."  Beer's trend relationship with cirrhosis (as
Terris noted so long ago) was nil in the U.S.

Ron Roizen, ph.d.
consultant sociologist
http://www.roizen.com/ron/index.htm

----------
From: Robin Room <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: DUI and wine
Date: Friday, January 12, 2001 1:54 PM

Martin -- the differences are much more likely to be due to who drinks the
different beverages, under what circumstances, than to any metabolic
differences between beverages.  Below is a reference from Medline which
will get you started.  Robin

J Stud Alcohol 1999 Nov; 60(6):732-9
Beer drinking accounts for most of the hazardous alcohol consumption
reported in the United States. Rogers JD, Greenfield TK Alcohol Research
Group, Public Health Institute, Berkeley, California 94709, USA.
OBJECTIVE: Patterns and correlates of hazardous drinking, defined as
occasions in which five or more drinks were consumed in a day, were
compared for wine, beer and distilled spirits. METHOD: From a probability
sample of the U.S. adult household population, 2,817 respondents who had
consumed at least one drink in the previous year were selected for
analysis. RESULTS: The results show that, in the U.S., beer accounts for
the bulk of alcohol consumed by the heaviest drinkers. Beer also accounts
for a disproportionate share of hazardous drinking. Logistic regression
analyses revealed that drinkers who consume beer in a hazardous fashion at
least monthly are more likely to be young, male and unmarried, and less
likely to be black than are other drinkers. Hazardous beer consumption is
more predictive of alcohol-related problems than hazardous consumption of
wine or spirits. CONCLUSIONS: Three potential explanations for the results
are considered: advertising, beer-drinking subcultures and risk
compensation. Additional research is urged in order to better specify the
causal role of these and other factors in hazardous beer drinking. PMID:
10606483, UI: 20072499

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Mac Marshall
  To: [log in to unmask]
  Sent: den 12 januari 2001 21:20
  Subject: DUI and wine


  Dear Fellow KBS'ers,

  I'm forwarding this from another list because I suspect our group is more
competent to answer these questions than is the Alcohol & Temperance
History Group.

  If you respond to Martin Platts, please copy it to me (or to the KBS
list), since I'm interested in the responses.

  Thanks,

  Mac Marshall



    Sender: Alcohol and Temperance History Group
    From: Martin Platts
    Subject: DUI and wine

    To: [log in to unmask]

    Has anyone on this list researched the breakdown of alcoholism and DUI
in regards to wine consumption? I have contacte a number of organizations
who generalize but never give actual specifics as to the statistical
breakdown between wine, beer, and spirits. Does drinking wine with food
travel through the blood stream at a slower rate than if one was consuming
beer and spirits with the same food? What is the metabolic rate difference
ratios in all three alcohol substances on say a 180 lb man and 135lb woman?
Is wine is bottom of the DUI list of alcohol beverages in such cases?
Government agencies have been very reluctant to disseminate the differences
to me. This information I need for my forthcoming book "Visions on Wine."
which hopes to cover both sides of the issue. Thank you. Martin Platts
h.c.i.m.a.

                                  -----