Novello Assails Brewers for Drinks Aimed at Minorities

The surgeon general appealed Tuesday for a public outcry against brewers who she says target Indians, blacks and other minorities with high-alcohol products such as Crazy Horse malt liquor.

“Together we can do what none of us can do alone,” Antonia Coello Novello told a House committee. “We must tell the alcohol industry that we have had enough disease, enough disability, enough addiction and enough death.”

Indians have expressed outrage at the Hornell Brewing Co. for putting the name of Crazy Horse, a revered Sioux leader, on the malt liquor being sold in several major urban areas.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ordered the brewer to change some aspects of the label, but agency officials said they were powerless to change the name or ban the product.

Novello said Crazy Horse is the latest in a line of beverages designed to appeal to minorities, including PowerMaster malt liquor and Black Death Vodka, two products whose names have since been changed by the makers.

“These types of targeted products just keep coming back . . . . When will it stop?” she asked. “I say enough is enough.”

The brewer denies that it is targeting the poor and says the product honors Indian heritage.

“A free society requires freedom of choice in many areas, not the least of which is the consumer’s right to select among products they find attractive or distasteful. They vote with their pocketbooks,” said a letter from the alcoholic-beverage industry that was released by the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families.

Indian leaders told lawmakers that the brew will worsen alcoholism among Indians. They said Crazy Horse considered alcohol a scourge that would destroy Indian people.