by Robert Zimmerman

About the author: Robert Zimmerman is a writer who specializes in alcohol and drug topics and is editor of the quarterly Prevention File.

Let’s hear it for moderation! We’re all for moderation, aren’t we? Well, it depends.

Senator Strom Thurmond is proposing that the warning labels on alcoholic beverages be broadened to mention that even moderate consumption of alcohol may lead to alcoholism or can cause health problems such as hypertension and breast cancer.

His bill sends a shudder through the Napa Valley and the rest of the wine country. The vintners have been trying to convince the government that it would be all right to put a label on their bottles associating “moderate wine consumption...