It is not at all uncommon any more to hear one who professes Christianity defending the so-called "social drink,"' or the occasional beer "in the privacy of my home." One of the usual "defenses" for such is, "the Bible condemns drunkenness, but does not say anything about drinking once in awhile."

In the first place, such statements show how little one knows about the Bible. They seem to think the only thing that would condemn drinking would be a passage somewhere that says, ". . . thou shalt not drink." According to their line of reasoning, a man could take five drinks and not sin, but he sins if the sixth one caused him to become intoxicated. Let's carry this "reasoning" a step or two further. What about the seventh, eighth and ninth drinks, and so on? They must not be wrong either, because it was the sixth one he got drunk on!

I wonder if such people are really aware of the dangers of using alcoholic beverages? We noticed the following in the March, 1968 issue of the, California Liberator, a news bulletin of the California Council on Alcoholic Problems, edited by Mr. Bergen Birdsall.

Consider this for a moment:

"Alcohol is a drug, according to M. K. Horwitt, Director of the L. B. Mendel Research Laboratory in Elgin, Illinois. Speaking on a TV program, he went on to say, 'if it (alcohol, bm) were discovered today, it probably would not be passed by the Food and Drug Administration for over-the-counter purchase; it would most likely be banned without a doctor's prescription'."

In the light of this, how can one who drinks, even "socially," consistently condemn the drug addicts for their use of habit-forming drugs? Why the law should be concerned about "cracking down" on one of the most despicable "occupations" in society today --those who push drugs for a living? All know the consequences of the constant use of the various drugs we read about almost every day. Then some try to defend the use of alcohol - probably the most widely used drug of them all!

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XII: 10, p. 3
July 1968