POLICE WORK TO KEEP DRUG OUT OF HANDS OF YOUR KIDS

Metro-area police chiefs have taken a fair amount of heat over their
recent efforts to enforce underage alcohol sales laws.

If you're one of the people upset that they're targeting those who
sell beer to minors, ask yourself this: If they were using the same
tactics to go after drug dealers, would you still be angry?

There's a reason we pose that question -- and that we keep returning
to this topic.

A study published last week in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol
found that four times as many minors die of alcohol abuse every year
as die from all illegal drugs combined.

Heroin. Cocaine. Crack. Meth. Add them all up and they don't come
close to doing the harm alcohol does.

Yet public policy and financial resources are aimed overwhelmingly at
fighting drug use by kids. For every dollar spent preventing underage
drinking, $25 in public funds are devoted to keeping kids off drugs,
the study found.

And on top of the human devestation represented in all those
premature deaths, underage drinking costs the United States $62
billion every year.

"Alcohol-related traffic crashes, violence, teen pregnancies, STDs,
burns, drownings, alcohol poisoning, property damage and other risks
take a human and economic toll that's much greater than illegal
drugs. Yet, we spend so much more on youth drug abuse," study author
Ted Miller, director of the Pacific Institute for Research and
Evaluation, said in a prepared statement.

The study even broke the problem down into real-world costs. Every
time a kid buys a beer in a bar or sneaks some vodka from the family
liquor cabinet, it costs America $3.

Finally, the study analyzed why underage drinking is such a problem
and how it best can be addressed. And that brings us back to the
recent bar checks in Wausau.

According to Miller, poor enforcement of drinking laws is the primary
culprit. The study called for more regulations and inspections of
taverns and other places alcohol is sold, as well as steps to make it
easier to verify a customer's age.

It went on to recommend zero-tolerance regulations and laws that make
parents liable for the aftermath when they allow underage drinking in
their homes.

Wisconsin already has addressed some of these concerns. New driver's
licenses make it impossible to mistake a minor for an adult -- adult
information is in the old horizontal format, but those under 21 get
vertically-printed licenses.

And the state has a zero-tolerance law that says drivers under age 21
can't have a drop of alcohol in their blood.

As for some of the study's other recommendations, politicians are
loathe even to contemplate laws that would rankle Wisconsin's
powerful alcohol lobby. It's far easier -- and politically risk-free
- -- to go after drug dealers.

But here's a jug of truth that lawmakers and the public need to take
a deep draught from:

Alcohol is a drug.

It's the most widely used and abused drug in our society. Yet some
among us are willing to turn a blind eye to those who sell it to youngpeople.

We're not. And we're grateful for local police who aren't willing to
look the other way, either.

Wednesday's edition of the Wausau Daily Herald contained a brief item
about a man who was out on bond after his arrest on a fifth-offense
drunken driving charge.

He blew past a police officer at 93 mph near Merrill before being
stopped and charged with his sixth offense.

He was 29 years old.

We don't know him or anything else about him. But odds are, he
started drinking young. Now he's in jail, and a lot of people in
Lincoln County who were on the road when he was might be darned lucky
to be alive.

That's why police are vigilant. And that's why responsible adults
should support their efforts to crack down on underage sales.