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paper, as yet unpublished, four of us wrote for WHO on this.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