Alcoholic Expert At Yale Approves College Drinking

Novice 'Cliffe drinkers and confirmed University sets can breath easier about taking occasional drinks, according to a report issued yesterday by a top alcoholic authority at Yale.

Dr. Sheldon D. Bacon, director of the center of alcoholic studies at Yale, yesterday gave a copyrighted story in which he derided "classical temperance lectures." He debunked all lectures that took the form of this warning to students:

"The first drink-it's the first drink that's the dangerous one-you're one drink away from a drunk. A little beer here and there and this horrible social drinking will lead to death, disgrace, and disease. The liver will turn purple, the brain shrink, and so on.

Bacon pointed out that students need take one look at their parents to know a few drinks will not hurt them. He said 70 million Americans, mostly parents, drink alcoholic beverages, but only four million are potential or confirmed alcoholics.

No Drinking "Unmoral"

Bacon called "drys," who preach the gospel of no drinking at all, "well meaning," but said "they are doing something which is unmoral."

Assertions that alcohol causes certain diseases, affects the brain tissue, or causes a shortening of life "have been disproved by objective and empiric evidence that could be repeated in any laboratory, he stated.

He also pointed out that not even the chronic drinker necessarily becomes an alcoholic-"there are millions of regular drinkers who aren't and won't become alcoholics."

Everyone on his Yale staff drank at least a little, Bacon pointed out. "No one on the staff," he said. "Is an extreme teetotaler or an extreme drinker."