Also: MoJo Wire has issued a correction to this item which is at:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1238.a08.html

AL GORE ON DRUGS

The Clinton-Gore administration spends millions to fight illegal
drugs, but does nothing about one of the most damaging substances in
American society: alcohol. Perhaps the fact that Big Booze is generous
at campaign time explains the contradiction.

Drugs are bad, except the ones that finance campaigns.

"If young people have emptiness in their lives, if they have a lack of
respect for the larger community of which they're a part, if they
don't find ways to feel connected to the adults who are in the
community, if they feel there's phoniness and hypocrisy and corruption
and immorality, then they are much more vulnerable to the drug
dealers, to the peers who tempt them with messages that are part of a
larger entity of evil." So spoke Al Gore in February 1999, denouncing
illegal drug use by young people.

Phoniness? Hypocrisy? Corruption? Immorality? Those four words nicely
sum up the Clinton-Gore "anti-drug" policy.

First, one might ask why Gore spoke exclusively about illegal drugs.
The stated No. 1 goal of the Office of National Drug Control Policy is
to "Educate and enable America's youth to reject illegal drugs as well
as alcohol and tobacco." While the White House, to its credit, is
making a concerted effort to reduce youth smoking, it has said little
about alcohol and done even less. Unlike Big Tobacco, Big Booze
remains a bipartisan briber.

According to "Millennium Hangover," a report by Drug Strategies, a
centrist nonprofit research institute, alcohol industry political
action committees "gave $2.3 million to federal candidates during the
1997-1998 campaign cycle -- as much as contributions by the tobacco
industry, and 21 percent more than the gun lobby ($1.9 million) ...
Thirty out of 34 Senators elected in 1998 -- including 15 Republicans
and 15 Democrats -- accepted contributions from alcohol PACs totaling
more than $400,000."

So the administration's bipartisan-backed "anti-drug" advertising
campaign excludes the mind-altering drug most likely to kill or hook
the very teens the campaign ostensibly seeks to protect. Alcohol is a
factor in 100,000 American deaths each year, compared to 52,000 for
all illicit drugs combined. Marijuana causes a tiny fraction of those
deaths. Pot can be and is abused, but alcohol boasts 12 million
addicts. It tears apart families. It's a major factor in violent
crime, including domestic abuse.

This would seem to call for a massive program that a) provides
treatment on demand, b) encourages abstinence, and c) floods the media
with sensible, science-based safe-drinking guidelines that can reduce
the risk of developing an alcohol problem or addiction. It's not
likely that Gore or his compassionate, recovered-problem-drinker rival
will propose as much at the St. Louis presidential debate, sponsored
as it is by Anheuser-Busch.

"Despite the cost of alcohol abuse to the nation, estimated at $167
billion annually, no comprehensive strategy has been developed to
reduce this problem. Federal spending on alcohol problems does not
begin to compare with expenditures for reducing illicit drug use,"
charges the Drug Strategies report. "Without Federal leadership --
concentrated, coordinated programs with well-defined goals and
adequate funding -- the enormous cost of alcohol abuse in both human
and economic terms will only increase."

It adds: "Voters have demanded action to stop illicit drug problems,
but have not expressed similar concerns about alcohol. Most voters are
not aware of the costs associated with alcohol abuse, and Congress
does not hear from large numbers of constituents that alcohol abuse
presents a pressing problem."

Young people try alcohol and other drugs for a host of reasons. Most
of these kids aren't troubled; they are curious about what it's like
to get high, and eager to engage in "adult" behavior.

Gore smoked pot as a young man. Were his college-chum "connections"
agents of evil? Does he think his old Harvard toking pals applauded
when half-a-million Americans were arrested for pot possession in
1996, and again in 1997 -- far more than in any year under Nixon or
Reagan?

Last year, the vice president told a group of black columnists he
favors reducing the draconian penalties for crack cocaine -- which
have contributed substantially to the explosive growth of the black
and Hispanic inmate population -- to the level for powder cocaine, the
preferred coke of white high-rollers. But will Gore do more than
whisper this to black columnists? Will he make it a "fundamental
fairness" issue in his campaign?

By doing so -- or better yet, by advocating treatment rather than
prison for nonviolent drug abusers; by dropping the silly "entity of
evil" rhetoric and speaking sensibly about teen-age drug use; and by
formulating an alcohol policy that puts the health of the American
people ahead of the health of the alcohol industry -- Gore can
demonstrate he is cutting himself off from the phony, hypocritical,
corrupt, and immoral drug policies of the administration he serves.
What do you think?