BEER IS NOT AN ILLEGAL DRUG

Beer is not an illegal drug. Beer wholesalers are not drug dealers and are
not engaged in drive-by shootings or other criminal activities. Therefore,
the National Beer Wholesalers Association believes it would be wrong to
include anti-alcohol messages under the domain of the president's director
of national drug policy, Barry McCaffrey, to fight illegal drug use by
America's youth. To do so would dilute his effort to fight youth addiction
to illicit drugs -- crack, heroin, "crank," cocaine -- and other drugs that
create a criminal culture.

The amendment sponsored by Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) and Frank
Wolf (R-Va.) seeks to equate the illegal underage purchase and consumption
of beer with the physiological addiction posed by crack, cocaine, heroin and
methamphetamine. The amendment undermines the work done by the Office of
National Drug Control Policy to combat illicit drug use among America's
youth. Moreover, both the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and Gen.
McCaffrey have publicly opposed the mandate that would result.

The beer industry is fighting the illegal purchase and consumption of beer
by minors and spends millions annually on alcohol-awareness programs
targeted at youth, and Congress has appropriated more than $800 million to
other government agencies to reduce alcohol abuse and illegal underage
alcohol consumption.

Weakening Gen. McCaffrey's illicit-drug program will result only in
strengthening the hand of America's criminal drug dealers.

Ronald Sarasin, President, National Beer Wholesalers Association, Alexandria