False claim Biden limiting Americans to 2 alcoholic drinks each week | Fact check

No, Biden doesn't want weekly 2-drink limit for Americans | Fact check  USA TODAY

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Sep 8, 2023 - 15:30
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False claim Biden limiting Americans to 2 alcoholic drinks each week | Fact check

The claim: President Joe Biden said Americans can have only two beers a week

An Aug. 28 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a TikTok video of a man speaking into the camera about a supposed new initiative from the White House.

“Joe Biden says Americans can have only 2 beers a week,” reads the text in the video.

It received more than 10,000 likes in seven days.

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Our rating: False

Biden has not said he wants to limit Americans to two drinks a week. The claim distorts statements made by a federal public health official about possible changes to alcohol consumption guidelines. Experts say they would not be mandates and there would be no way to prevent anyone from drinking more than the recommended amount.

Expert: ‘People still can and will drink what they want to’

Under current U.S. Department of Agriculture public health guidelines, women are advised not to drink more than one alcoholic beverage per day. For men, the suggested limit is two.

However, Dr. George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, floated the possibility that the recommendation could shrink to two drinks per week in an interview with the Daily Mail published in late August.

But those guidelines are only recommendations, not laws or mandates, and experts say there is nothing to stop anyone from exceeding either of those suggested limits.

“People still can and will drink what they want to,” William Kerr, a senior scientist at the Public Health Institute’s Alcohol Research Group, said in an email to USA TODAY.

There are no credible news reports about Biden saying he wants to limit Americans to two drinks a week. There is no mention of such a goal on the White House’s website.

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Canadian officials recommended that adults limit themselves to two or fewer alcoholic beverages per week, the CBC reported. Koob raised the possibility that a similar change could be made in the U.S. in 2025, when its guidelines are up for review.

Updates to the guidelines are issued every five years by the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the National Institutes of Health, the parent agency of the NIAAA.

Kerr said there is no guarantee the two-drink guideline would be adopted in the U.S.

“One perspective on the guidelines is that the goal is to get people to drink less and reduce alcohol harms,” he said.

Alcohol consumption is associated with health problems that include high blood pressure and cancer, and those risks increase with the amount of alcohol consumed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

USA TODAY reached out to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism but did not immediately receive a response.

The social media user who made the post declined to provide evidence to support the claim.

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