Inner Revolutionary Radio

Alcohol has blood on its hands. Its role in US history includes the slave trade and organized crime. It’s implicated in over half the incarcerations in the US, especially violent crimes. Child abuse, domestic violence, loss of work, drunk driving are its daily results. It damages our health and leads to 88,000 deaths a year. Kids nab some from the family cupboard and become hopelessly addicted. Anybody with a couple of bucks can buy it. Tons of money is spent trying to free ourselves from it. Millions of lives are ruined as wage earners become dysfunctional and parents become angry, violent and incompetent. There’s treatment for alcoholism, and we have improved our awareness around drunk driving. But alcohol itself remains not only legal and available, but the sacred cow of drugs. Doctors even recommend it. Why? What makes it the okay drug? Race? Class? Money? We’re not recommending Prohibition. But let’s take on alcohol: why we give it a pass and what we’re paying for our denial.