Private documents show Coca-Cola played both sides of drunk driving debate

Washington: Private documents have shown that Coca-Cola, which joined Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to promote vehicular safety, was also side by side a member of a trade association that was fighting tougher drunk driving laws.
In 1996, the top notch company and Wal-Mart teamed up to give away more than 250,000 million dollars to MADD.

In 1997, the company launched a campaign where it gave 15 cents for every soda case sold in Wal-Mart stores over a 6-week period to the organization.

However, according to documents obtained by The Huffington Post, Coca-Cola Food Service is one of the nearly 150 companies listed as trade association American Beverage Institute members either in 2011 or 2013.

Coca-Cola spokeswoman Kirsten Witt played damage control by saying that on behalf of their customers, Coca-Cola has provided support to ABI over the years and that they are not engaged in advocacy efforts of ABI.