The Biden administration issued a report showing alcohol's causal link to cancer. Not just statistical woo, like epidemiologists "correlating" virtual pollution ({PM2.5) to things like insomnia and lower scores in first grade, or weedkillers to anything an environmental lawyer can dream up, serious evidence.
That would never have happened in the past, even though President Biden was so aggressive using agencies he had EPA conscript US Marshalls to invade family farms after declaring man-made ponds "navigable waters of the US" despite it being found unconstitutional. He used CDC to stop evictions of people who didn't pay their rent, claiming they'd increase COVID-19.(1) He used OSHA to force private sector employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or be forced to fire those who object - while exempting government.
It wouldn't have happened in the past. Democrats not only drink as much as Republicans, because the richest counties and states in America are dominated by Democrats, they drink more and at far higher spending.
That doesn't mean doctors are happy about it, so with President Biden focused on which celebrities he could have visit for Presidential Freedom medals, perhaps US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy slipped his report on alcohol in and POTUS absently nodded. Or Biden was told the tide was turning against alcohol and future critics of his time in office would have to give him credit for ending its government free pass, the same way anti-science activists are forced to praise Republican President Richard Nixon for the environmental laws they use to raise money suing everyone about.
The French government won't follow suit on criticism, they mandate radio programming be at least 25% French because they rightly believe their terrible music (except you, Carla Bruni) will decline otherwise, but history is moving ahead despite government blinders.
Gen Z doesn't care about 'certified organic'
Red wine consumption in France is down 90% from its Boomer apex while all wine is down 80%. Some of that is high cost, of course, French young people face a crippling government services tax burden while all they get is overpriced organic food and bleak career prospects. A luxury like wine is a treat, not a lifestyle propped up by addiction, but some is also that young people are better educated and have learned to be skeptical that Boomer Environmentalists and Boomer policymakers can be trusted on anything. Young people are skeptical of everything, and do not associate alcohol with being an adult.
If that trend continues, the Gen Z problem - their consumption of wine is even half of millennials, who are already a fraction of Boomers and Gen X - is going to lead to even more vineyards being plowed under than the 24,000 acres plowed under in just the Bordeaux region. Switching to "organic" didn't help, because young people don't take their guidance from industry focus groups who said because government campaigned against conventional farming and climate change, that's what consumers are worried about.
They are not. They care about the high cost of electricity, they care about all of the old people who die in heat waves because they can't afford to run air conditioners while French elites try to get the young to protest against Israel and Donald Trump.
The clock for alcohol is ticking in the same way cigarettes are winding down. Despite France elites.
“With every generation in France we see the change. If the grandfather drank 300 liters of red wine per year, the father drinks 180 liters and the son, 30 liters,” said industry trade group Conseil Interprofessionnel du vin de Bordeaux board member Jean-Pierre Durand.
Less alcohol will be a public health win for Gen Z
Wine is an addictive carcinogen that makes many feel good and uses pleasant flavors to make it palatable enough to create the addiction. Governments don't allow grape-flavored cigarettes yet have given alcohol exemption from real health scrutiny. Alcoholism is bad, they note, so just drink the carcinogen in moderation and hope you don't become addicted to the addictive chemical that gives it such power.
Gen Z sees how devastating it is. They are paying for the health care of older people who are battling at least 8 cancers they might not have gotten without alcohol.
Critical thinking by Gen Z is bad for growers who currently turn up their nose at making blends, canned wine, or switching to wine tourism.
Yet it is great for their future. Young people will live better for longer without alcohol or smoking. All they have to do is not become obese.
NOTE:
(1) All possible thanks to "Chevron Deference", a ruling in 1984 by a court far more lopsided toward government control than today's is toward conservative rulings. They declared that a federal agency could create regulations that act as laws if it was within their 'mandate.' Which meant all a President had to do was expand their mandate and they could do virtually anything.
They went to far with...one small fishing boat. Using Chevron Deference, they told a small boat they had to carry a federal inspector with them as well. And they had to pay for the inspector, which meant they'd lose money on the trip. So they sued.
Luckily for our evidence-based future, that is no longer possible because while the Supreme Court knew Chevron Deference was nonsense, lower courts used it. Like when the Obama administration told a landowner in Louisiana that they had to tear down their forest and put in a new one for a frog, the Mississippi Gopher Frog, that didn't even exist in Louisiana. If they did not comply, their permits to build housing for people who wanted to leave below sea-level New Orleans would never happen.
