I am usually behind any reasonable program to educate people against drinking and driving. With that said, I was a little insulted by the latest publicity stunt pulled off by the Bennington Vermont Police Dept.
They have decided to employ "Profiling" this holiday season by distributing beer glasses emblazoned with the Bennington Police Department logo. A friendly reminder to all of us heathen beer drinkers, the scourge of society, to not drink and drive. Why not wine glasses which are smaller, easier to drink and contain the same amount of alcohol as a beer pint, or the cocktail glasses that deliver the strongest dose of alcohol per serving?
This is just one more example of the ongoing bias against beer and beer drinkers in our society. Why does it exist? Did we earn it? Even the big three US brewers apparently think the same way about us. Look at the way they market to us. They use mindless sophmoric characters, dogs, twins, bikinis and of course it's less filling so drink more!
So, I guess since beer has been the drink of the common man for over 6000 years, and common men are the perpetrators of DUI, then we earn the scrutiny? That is the internal logic that must be going on in the minds of the police in Bennington.
The money would have been better spent on simple education about body weight, relative alcohol strength in beer, wine and cocktails. I find that most adults do not understand simple alcohol by volume, nor do they know how many drinks of certain ABV they should consume for their weight. Then there are those who just know they are hammered, like Mel Gibson, who was drinking a bottle of tequila (not Tequiza) when pulled over and arrested for DUI recently.
The offense is DUI, not DUIB (driving under the influence of beer). It is a serious issue in this country, and it can ruin lives. Singling out beer drinkers on this issue is short sighted and ignorant of the real issues.
Taste Beer!
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