Dear Editor,

Voting to bring public legal sales of alcohol to Hartselle makes you just as guilty and accountable as if you opened your own store and sold it to your neighbors and your neighbor’s children.

If your response is “I would never do that,” I ask you, what is the difference? Do you think that voting for someone else to sell the stuff gets you off the hook? You are seriously wrong.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the U.S. had this to say about the nation’s alcohol problem on Nov. 22, 1963:

“Alcoholism is tragically high on the list of our nation’s health problems. Five million Americans are alcoholics. They bring incalculable grief to millions of families. They cost their families, their employers and society billions of dollars.”

A man takes a drink, then the drink takes the man.

Don Atkinson

Hartselle