The Washington Report.

Abstract

Of all issues facing the alcohol field as it enters the decade of the 1980s, none is more freighted with emotionalism, complexity and ambiguity than that of warning labels for alcoholic beverages. It combines a volatile mix of politics and economics with a heavy lacing of philosophical nd semantic onflict. When it began to emerge at the national evel in the latter part of the 1970s, the divisive nature of the issue was immediately apparent with deep, abiding schisms in the constituency. To the outsider or newcomer to the field, the controversy is baffling. Anyone not familiar with the field and its history would probably assume that its natural penchant would be in support of measures warn~ ing the public about the risks of drinking alcohol. That such is not the case raises questions in the minds of the uninitiate which can be answered only with an explanation which raises other questions that require even more explanations. To begin with, a distinction must be made between the alcoholism field and the field of alcohol problems, of which alcoholism is one. The distinction is c•-ucial to an understanding of some of the divisions that have emerged in the last few years. Its particular significance can be seen in the fact that the largest national organization with an exclusive concern for alcoholism,--by nomenclature as well as by policy and programmatic activity--is the only major organization which has refrained from taking a pro or con position on warning labels--the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA). NCA's position on the issue, adopted by its board of directors in January 1979 and reaffirmed at a stormy meeting in October 1979, is as follows: