There is tremendous irony in The Active Age for June 2024. On the front page is the Spangles grannies article about the alcohol advertising. It makes it appear that alcohol is a good thing for seniors. On page 8 is the article about Myra Warren (McHenry) and the Kansas temperance movement.
I have special interest in the Warren article because I am the last in a long chain of successors to the work of Carry Nation. The last stage in the temperance movement was carried on by Kansans for Addiction Prevention. I was the president of the organization and lobbyist up until we ceased activities at the beginning of 2012.
Kansans for Addiction Prevention unsuccessfully pushed back on the alcohol industry until 2012. We were unsuccessful in accomplishing our major goal of getting the Legislature to increase the 1977 tax rates on alcohol and bring them up to inflation levels. We joined with other groups that were successful in getting the taxes on tobacco increased. Increasing cost does decrease consumption of either tobacco or alcohol.
The real irony for a newspaper whose readership is older persons is the light approach to the harm Spangles is doing to we elderly folks. Several recent articles have documented that alcohol is even more harmful to the elderly than for younger drinkers.
Are we fanatics because we try to save a few thousand lives and prevent the destruction of families? Carry Nation did it by her will and energy; we cannot seem to make common sense and science have very much impact in our booze-controlled culture.
Garry Winger, Pastor
Furley United Methodist Church
Valley Center
