Tobacco companies have dropped out of the local sponsorship business, but B.C.’s breweries and wineries are stepping in to help bankroll cultural events.
The above is the opening paragraph/sentence from a page 3 article in this week’s Business in Vancouver magazine. The article doesn’t make much of a political statement, but merely provides examples of local wine/beer companies that are sponsoring various events. When I read this, my first thought was “great, we’re replacing one vice with another.” Wasn’t the opposition to tobacco sponsorship rooted in the (somewhat Puritan) belief that it was wrong to allow vice to be promoted in connection with a positive cultural influence like the arts? To be clear, I have no problem whatsoever with sponsorship from any source. I am just waiting for the next wave of political correctness to come along and spoil the fun.
Who’s going to be the first to step up to the plate and complain that alcohol is a vice, and that beer/wine sponsorship of the arts is promoting alcoholism and drunk driving?
One very amusing part of the article was the quote from Okanagan Spring Brewery’s marketing director John Furch, who described the Pure Music Festival happening in Vancouver at the end of June as:
one big, 5,000-person beer garden with some pretty high profile bands.
I can just wait for MADD and AA to step up to the soapbox.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Three words: Arts County Fair
I think the distinction is usually that, while alcohol is certainly a vice and has destructive influences on society, it isn’t relentlessly addictive for most of its users, while tobacco is. Most people who drink are not alcoholics, but most people who smoke are tobacco addicts.
In other words, if someone starts using tobacco (spurred on, perhaps, by the cachet given it by arts sponsorships), chances are that they will become addicted and will use it daily for a very long time, and quite likely die from that use. On the other hand, if someone starts drinking alcohol, chances are that they will _not_ become an addict, but just an occasional user. If almost everyone who had the occasional beer converted over into a daily habit of a mickey of rum, alcohol would be even more disdained than cigarettes (and likely illegal) because of its much stronger effects on people’s behaviour.
That’s how the distinction works in my mind, and while you can argue the logic of it, or its philosophy, I think it’s why alcohol has become less stigmatized over time, and tobacco more.
Well at least someone is seeing the irony of “supporting” alcohol… Less addicting, well that’s a matter of opinion, ask the next alcoholic you run into….