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Why Is RWJF Like a Duck?
(9/8/2003)

Apparently, we upset The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in our television debate with Jim O’Hara of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY). They thought our characterization of RWJF as “prohibitionist” was unfair.

In a recent letter to us, RWJF’s VP of Communication David Morse wrote, “No one from this Foundation has stated that our goal or mission is to reduce per capita consumption of alcohol, because such a statement simply wouldn’t be true.”

Naturally, we disagree. The following is our response.

September 5, 2003

Mr. David J. Morse
Vice President of Communications
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Route 1 and College Road East
Post Office Box 2316
Princeton, NJ 08543

Dear Mr. Morse:

Have you ever heard the phrase, “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck …”?

While it may be true that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has not incorporated neo-prohibitionist language into its mission statement, it has embraced Prohibition in its deeds and in its philanthropic giving. Your organization has contributed more than $260 million to virulently anti-alcohol organizations from 1998 to 2002, and many millions more before and since then. After lavishing that kind of money on these neo-prohibitionist groups, you have more than a small obligation to accept the labels that attend their extreme anti-alcohol agendas.

Consider the Fighting Back program, which RWJF founded in 1988—and to which it has since given over $60 million. According to RWJF’s own website, the Foundation has evaluated the program to “determine if Fighting Back communities have been able to achieve measurable reduction in the overall use of or demand for alcohol ...”

Another RWJF “project,” The Oregon Partnership, used a portion of the $800,000 in RWJF grants to plaster Portland area buses with ads that depict a beer bottle as a hypodermic needle.

The Trauma Foundation, which has received over $1.5 million from RWJF since 1997, promotes increased taxes, marketing restrictions, and zoning restrictions to “reduce the availability of alcohol and other drugs …”

RWJF also underwrites research that invariably reflects the anti-alcohol bias of the Foundation. For example, one RWJF-funded study (Mangione, et al., 1998) concluded that casual drinking costs businesses $67 billion a year in lost productivity. Its recommendation? “A shift in focus of worksite alcohol interventions from a model that focuses exclusively on alcoholism to one that recognizes the inherent risks of alcohol consumption at any level.”

RWJF paid $263,711 for a study by Deborah Cohen in which she suggested the “magnitude of alcohol-related health problems in a population is directly related to per capita consumption.” Naturally, she recommended that the way to address alcohol abuse by the few is by “controlling access to alcohol” to all. Another RWJF-funded paper, “Alcohol Policies in the United States”(Wagenaar, 2000), advocates a “population-wide prevention strategy,” which recommends “reducing overall consumption levels across the population.”

None of this should come as a surprise, though. Among the formal recommendations of the Alcohol Policy XII Conference (a veritable family reunion of neo-prohibitionist activists underwritten by the RWJF) was the following:

“Research and data from community partnerships and programs to reduce underage drinking should support the goals of the partnership/program funders.”

In describing the Alcohol Policy XI Conference, the RWJF webpage reads, “Presentations spotlighted: (1) successful policies to reduce alcohol consumption, including raising prices, restricting access, and increasing the minimum drinking age …”

The most recent Alcohol Policy XIII Conference (APC 13) was even more revealing. In her welcoming remarks, Education Development Center (EDC) Senior Vice President Cheryl Vince said, “This event is indeed an important opportunity for all of us to advance the policy agenda to prevent and reduce alcohol consumption and related harm.” As you probably know, EDC received a $5 million grant from RWJF and an additional $200,000 to host APC 13.

I could go on, but you get the point. It is disingenuous of you to hide behind semantics when RWJF is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve neo-prohibitionist goals. These actions speak for themselves.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is a duck.

Sincerely,

John Doyle
Executive Director

cc: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Board of Trustees