Reporter Erik Smith at the Washington State Wire ferrets out the origins of a claim that the anti-liquor privatization campaign is making in the debate over I-1183, the Costco-backed initiative to privatize booze sales.

The claim? The Center for Disease Control did a study that says alcohol consumption will increase by 48 percent if Washington privatizes booze.

But here's Smith on that anti-I-1183 sound bite:

Alcohol consumption will skyrocket by 48 percent if the state shuts down its liquor stores and allows Jim Beam into supermarkets. So says the campaign against the November ballot measure that would allow private retailers to sell hard liquor in Washington for the first time since Prohibition.

You’ll discover this fact in the ads being aired by Protect our Communities, the no-on-1183 campaign. It’s on the campaign’s website. It’s being cited in speeches before public forums.

But this claim, like others that have been aired lately in the campaign, seems to have a few problems. It is based on a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that wasn’t a study, wasn’t done by the CDC, and was based mainly on 30 and 40-year-old sales figures for wine, not hard liquor.

Read Smith's article here.