Teens and Alcohol | Introduction
“Undoubtedly, alcohol is the principal drug use problem in America today,” said drug czar Barry McCaffrey, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), in 1997. Most public health advocates agree. “Alcohol is the drug most frequently used by American teenagers,” writes Surgeon General David Satcher. “Parents don’t realize that alcohol—not illicit drugs—is the No. 1 drug killing our children,” says Karolyn Nunnallee, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). “They think, ‘Thank God my child is only drinking beer and not using drugs.’We’ve got to change that mindset.”
The costs of teen alcohol abuse are staggeringly high. According to Satcher, alcohol “is consumed more frequently than all other illicit drugs combined and is the drug most likely to be associated with injury or death. Alcohol is a drug that can affect judgment, coordination and long-term health. It is involved in teen automobile crashes, homicides, and suicides—the three leading causes of teen deaths.” The National Highway Traffic Safety Commission reports that over two thousand young people die in alcohol-related crashes each year. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), youth who drink before age fifteen are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who begin drinking at age twenty-one.
According to David Byrd, a writer for the National Journal, “Although no one denies the problem of underage drinking, its surprising magnitude has received scant attention.” Because of this, many public health advocates believe that reducing underage drinking should be a goal in the war on drugs. “No comprehensive drug control strategy for youth can be complete without the full inclusion of underage alcohol use and abuse,” writes the surgeon general. Mc- Caffrey himself has said that alcohol is “the most dominant drug causing violence among young people.”
But alcohol is not part of ONDCP’s drug prevention efforts. In 1999, MADD led a coalition calling on Congress to pass the Roybard-Allard amendment, which would have included alcohol in ONDCP’s five-year, $1 billion anti-drug advertising campaign. In July 1999 however, the measure was voted down. “Not one penny of taxpayer dollars will purchase underage drinking prevention ads,” laments MADD national director of programs Bobby Heard. In a news conference following the congressional vote, McCaffrey explained that including alcohol in the war on drugs “could dilute the focus . . . and would only hamper the effectiveness of our campaign.” “Alcohol is a legal substance, and these other drugs are not legal,” said Robert Weiner, a spokesman for McCaffrey.
Weiner’s statement echoes the alcohol industry’s own arguments against targeting alcohol. Since alcohol is legal for adults, the industry questions whether it is within ONDCP’s jurisdiction to campaign against it. Moreover, industry spokesmen object to the idea that alcohol is as harmful as illegal drugs. “A glass of chardonnay with our meals should not be equated with cocaine or heroin,” says John DeLuca, president of the Wine Institute, a trade association. “Such a monstrous distortion offends culture, tradition, social science, and common sense.” David Rehr, vice president of the National Beer Wholesalers Association argues that “our adversaries want . . . to give people the idea that sipping a beer is like injecting yourself with heroin, which it’s not.”
Supporters of Roybard-Allard, however, questioned whether the amendment had failed because of the alcohol industry’s enormous influence on Capitol Hill. “Alcohol interests are likely to fiercely challenge any taxpayer-funded advertising campaign trying to ‘deglamorize’ drinking,” notes National Journal’s David Byrd. Philip Morris, the company that owns Miller Brewing, was the largest donator to the Republican Party in 1998, and Joseph E. Seagram & Sons was the top donor to the Democrats in 1996, giving a total of over $1.2 million. “Illegal drug producers don’t provide PAC [political action committee] money,” says George Hacker, head of the Alcohol Policies project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
To its credit, in 1998 Congress created a new program in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The Congressional Combating Underage Drinking Initiative provides at least $360,000 to each state to help stop illegal alcohol sales to minors and create new programs to prevent underage drinking. But the program’s $25 million budget is minuscule compared to ONDCP’s $1 billion initiative or to the $1.4 billion that Anheuser-Busch spent on advertising in 1999 alone. Lobbyists such as Hacker believe that a much greater portion of the nation’s resources should be devoted to the problem of underage drinking. “Either [lawmakers] stand up to protect America’s children, or they stand up for the alcoholic beverage industry’s special interests,” he concludes.
The ongoing debate over how the government should deal with the problem of underage drinking is just one of the issues examined in Teens and Alcohol: Current Controversies. Other aspects of the problem are explored in the following chapter: How Serious Is the Problem of Underage Drinking? What Problems Are Associated with Teen Alcohol Abuse? Does Alcohol Advertising Encourage Teens to Drink? Are Age-21 Laws Effective in Reducing Teen Alcohol Abuse? What Measures Are Effective in Reducing Teen Alcohol Abuse? The volume aims to raise awareness about the often-ignored issue of underage drinking and to educate readers about the varied approaches to preventing teen alcohol abuse.
