May I gently demur:  all non-drinkers are not ignorant.

ernie kurtz

Jim Hedges wrote:
> Very true, and it's a conundrum for those of us in the temperance 
> movement.  Educated people are less likely to be religious (because of 
> knowing better), but more likely to drink (even though they should know 
> better). So, educated, irreligious, non-drinkers such as myself are 
> socially ostracized from both groups -- we're not welcome among ignorant 
> non-drinkers, because we're not believers, and we're not welcome among 
> educated drinkers, because we're not imbibers.  Drinking by the educated 
> must be a status symbol, like being fat in a poor society or thin in a 
> rich society.  The tobacco prohibition folks have largely succeeded in 
> eliminating smoking among the educated by making smoking unfashionable.  
> How do we alcohol prohibition folks made drinking unfashionable?
> 
> Jim Hedges, Partisan Prohibition Historical Society
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     From:  /Robin G W Room <[log in to unmask]>/
>     Reply-To:  /Alcohol and Drugs History Society
>     <[log in to unmask]>/
>     To:  [log in to unmask]
>     Subject:  /Re: statistics on class and ethnicity/
>     Date:  /Tue, 22 May 2007 05:43:21 +0200/
>      >Gretchen --
>      >    There are lots of differences in drinking by ethnicity.  This
>     is true botrh
>      >between societies and for ethnicities within a multicultural society.
>      >    The general rule for social class is that there are more
>     abstainers among
>      >poor people. Among those who do drink at all, poor drinkers tend
>     to have higher
>      >rates of drinking to intoxication.
>      >    Among those who do drink to intoxication or drink a lot, the
>     poor tend to
>      >end up with more health or social trouble -- you might say they
>     are less able
>      >to insulate themseleves from the health and social effects.   are
>     more likely
>      >    Heavy drinking is moralized in most societies, and poor heavy
>     drinkers are
>      >often stigmatized and marginalized.  Marginalized heavy drinkers
>     account for
>      >more than their share of premature mortality.
>      >    This is the short version, unreferenced.  I will send you
>     off-list a long
>      >paper, as yet unpublished, four of us wrote for WHO on this.
>      >    On the epidemiology of drinking in Mexico, check for the names
>     Maria-Elena
>      >Medina Mora and Guillermo Borges.
>      >       Cheers, Robin
>      >
>      >
>      >On 2007-05-21, at 03:55, Gretchen Pierce wrote:
>      > > Dear Group,
>      > >
>      > > As a historian I feel woefully inadequate when it comes to what
>      > > scientists, anthropologists, etc. have said about the subject of
>      > > alcohol addiction.  I know that Mexican temperance reformers in the
>      > > 1920s and 30s believed that indigenous and working-class people
>     drank
>      > > more than others, and they believed that science validated
>     their ideas.
>      > >   But my question is: what do modern scienticists say about
>     this?  Is
>      > > there any propensity to consume alcohol based on class or
>     ethnicity?
>      > > It seems highly prejudiced to me, but I could be wrong.  Any
>     good works
>      > > that you could point me to?
>      > >
>      > > Thanks,
>      > > Gretchen
>      > >
>      > > Gretchen Pierce
>      > > Adjunct Instructor
>      > > Indiana University Northwest
>      > > Ph.D. Candidate
>      > > University of Arizona
> 
> 
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