Is AB-InBev acting irresponsibly?
The New York Times newspaper has been on the warpath against AB-InBev ever since February 2012 when the Oglala Sioux filed a USD 500 million federal lawsuit against several large brewers, including Anheuser-Busch (A-B) and Miller Brewing, local beer distributors, and the four Whiteclay beer shops, which sold the equivalent of 4.3 million cans of beer last year. The suit accuses the alcohol businesses of encouraging the illegal possession, transport and consumption of alcohol on the Indian reservation, where alcohol is banned.
The Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof,
who has been following the story, launched another fierce attack on A-B when he wrote on 5 May 2012 that, after seeing “Anheuser-Busch’s devastating exploitation of American Indians”, he was done with its beer. He called upon his readers to also stop drinking A-B’s beers.
When a major media outlet like the New York Times, which is often seen as a supporter of Big Business, publishes a call to action like this one, you can expect the blogosphere to run away with it. Try googling “Anheuser-Busch+Indians+reservation” and you will end up with over 500,000 hits.
Whiteclay, a town in the state of Nebraska, wouldn’t be in the news if it had not become the metaphor for all that ails American Indians. The town has a population of about 10 people, but it sells more than four million cans of beer and malt liquor annually, because it is the main channel through which alcohol illegally enters the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation just 200 metres north — across the state line in South Dakota.
The drink of choice in Whiteclay seems to be Hurricane High Gravity Lager, a malt liquor (8.1 percent ABV) which is brewed by Anheuser-Busch. Hence the blame on Anheuser-Busch. A 16-ounce can costs USD 1.50 – an efficient way to get drunk without having to rob a bank.
Pine Ridge, one of America’s largest Indian reservations, bans alcohol. The Oglala Sioux who live there struggle to keep alcohol out, going so far as to arrest people for possession of a can of beer. However, the tribe has no jurisdiction over Whiteclay because it is just outside the reservation boundary, Mr Kristof says.
On Pine Ridge, which is about the size of the state of Connecticut with a population of about 45,000 people, the tribal police last year made 20,000 alcohol-related arrests, it was reported.
The lawsuit seeks USD 500 million for costs incurred by the tribe for health care, law enforcement and social services related to chronic drinking, and to limit the amount of beer Whiteclay shops can sell.
According to several media reports, the legal argument has been made that the brewers and the stores know that they are selling alcohol to people who have no permissible place to consume it, and who are smuggling it onto the reservation for illegal use and resale.
The suit was filed in federal court because the federal authorities oversee Indian reservations and are the ultimate arbiters on alcohol issues. Anheuser-Busch and the other alcohol companies named in the lawsuit declined to comment.
The lawsuit comes amid a growing debate on Pine Ridge and other reservations about the pros and cons of alcohol prohibition.
About a third of the Indians’ 310 reservations ban alcohol, but Pine Ridge is the only remaining dry reservation in South Dakota. Next-door Rosebud Sioux Reservation allows alcohol and taxes its sales. In fact, the tribe there owns most of the liquor stores.
As several clear-sighted bloggers wrote: Even if Nebraska shut down the Whiteclay stores, the Indians’ plight would not improve. Those sales would simply move elsewhere.
Now, on the other hand, if the tribe legalised, sold and taxed beer sales, it would still have a problem with alcoholism, which has been raging for generations. And tribal leaders would have to take on the responsibility of telling voting adults with money in their pockets that they couldn’t always have as much beer as they’d like to buy, and confront a legion of unhappy, unemployed bootleggers.
So – what’s going to happen? Probably very little, as solving such a long-standing and deep social problem will require more of an effort than pointing fingers at the “irresponsible” producers of alcohol.
