BOOZE LOBBY TRIES TO BOTTLE UP ANTI-DRINKING CAMPAIGN

By all accounts, alcohol is the most dangerous drug to young people. Far
more than any illegal drug, alcohol is linked to the three main causes of
teen deaths: accidents, murder and suicide. It kills six times as many
American youths as all illegal drugs combined. So, why do we have a
national youth anti-drug campaign and not a national anti-underage-drinking
campaign?

Simple: Alcohol has a better lobby.

Six years ago, Congress enthusiastically embraced a $1 billion campaign to
get kids off illegal drugs. But proposals to include alcohol were defeated
by alcohol industry supporters. Still, Congress did authorize $500,000 for
a National Academy of Sciences study on underage drinking that was supposed
to define a national strategy for reducing the No. 1 health and safety
threat to teens.

A panel of respected researchers, academics and prevention experts was
chosen last summer, and its study now is undergoing final review.
Meanwhile, the alcohol industry and its supporters in Congress and the
administration have conducted a campaign of intimidation against the
National Academy of Sciences and the committee of experts that wrote the
study. Academy officials say they never have seen such intense industry
interest in one of their reports. Industry lobbyists are going all-out, and
in the forefront of their assault is, as might be expected, the National
Beer Wholesalers Association.

Beer is the alcoholic beverage kids like best. Teens consume more than 1
billion cans and bottles of beer each year, according to a Health and Human
Services Department study. Another study, published in February in The
Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that underage drinking
accounts for 20 percent of all alcohol consumed. Young people provide a big
chunk of revenue for the $116 billion industry.

In Congress, the alcohol industry can be as intimidating as anybody in
Washington. The energetic leader of the beer wholesalers, David Rehr, has
transformed the association into a cohesive network of local distributors
who donate heavily to, and lean heavily on, their members of Congress.

While the beer wholesalers and other industry groups publicly supported the
study when Congress approved it, they went on the offensive as soon as the
research panel was chosen. Mr. Rehr and other industry association leaders
complained in a letter to National Academy of Science administrators last
August that the panel was biased, and they named five panel members they
insisted were particularly objectionable.

This spring, the assault intensified. The beer wholesalers began issuing
press releases accusing the academy of misusing taxpayer money by choosing
a panel of "controversial individuals" who focused on antiquated or
untested solutions in order to "vilify a legal industry," although no panel
members had made any public statements about the study. Next came a letter
signed by 138 members of Congress sent to the academy president, warning
him that the $500,000 appropriation wasn't intended to produce policy
changes that would adversely affect the alcohol industry.

In February, a Health and Human Services Department administrator wrote to
the study's program officer asking that the alcohol industry be allowed to
peer-review the report before it was released. Such a bold request on
behalf of an industry with a clear financial interest stunned the research
community. Had the program officer allowed that unprecedented intrusion,
which she didn't, it would have compromised the scientific integrity of the
report and tarnished the entire process.

Because substance abuse prevention has been so widely researched, it is
very unlikely the National Academy of Sciences underage-drinking panel will
endorse any strategies that don't have good science behind them. The study
probably will propose a range of well-known options, from ads warning teens
about the dangers of drinking, which the alcohol industry might accept, to
restrictions on marketing and advertising, which the industry would reject.

Even if alcohol lobbyists can't bury the study, they will try to make sure
it finds little support on Capitol Hill or in the administration. In the
end, the idea of a national campaign against what the American Medical
Association calls an epidemic in every community will die quietly.

Jim Gogek is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation fellow.