Social Issues

Owners of Montana's licensed businesses strive to run responsible enterprises. Here, three-decade bartender Glen Godward mans the plank at the classy Chattam's Livingston Bar and Grill.      When an untruth is repeated often enough, it can become generally accepted as fact. History is rife with examples.
     These myths often seem logical enough on their face, especially when repeatedly espoused by one interest group or another, then accordingly reported by the media without an objective look at the facts behind the assertions.
     When it comes to social policy, the problem is compounded by perhaps well meaning, yet overly zealous advocacy groups that pursue their engineered social ends with an ardency that overlooks or, they seem to believe, excuses excesses and oversights.
     Activities historically enjoyed by adults and tempered by moral taboos--such as gambling, alcohol use and tobacco consumption--seem particularly vulnerable to regulation and policy built on myth and emotion rather than fact.
     Few would argue that these activities or products need regulating. But neither would many dispute that policy and law are best established based on clear, objective fact, with the myth and propaganda separated like the chaff from the wheat.
     Here are a few examples of popularly accepted myths that, under an objective microscope, fail the fact test:
     Gambling results in more crime; teen drinking is a growing problem; we have more pawn shops because gambling is more available; drunk driving is becoming more prevalent; states with a lot of gambling have more bankruptcies; the number of casinos in Montana is "exploding" or, at minimum, growing steadily; gambling establishments enjoy extraordinary profitability.
     Or, you may have heard these: smoking bans in traditionally smoke-friendly businesses such as taverns will actually increase business as non-smokers will now patronize businesses they have been avoiding; unimpeachable scientific studies have proven secondhand smoke kills 60,000 Americans a year; Montana's gambling taxes are low; teen drinking and traffic deaths related to underage drinking are on the rise.
     Obviously, a number of these commonly accepted "assumptions" are flatly wrong, while others need to at least be viewed in a larger context or in light of other relevant information.
     Check the related articles for specific facts that are contrary to popular myths.

Source: Special Reports II, published and distributed to 180,000 households state-wide, winter 2002 by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.