BEER LOBBY AT WORK

If beer lobbyists have their way in Congress, an expensive taxpayer-funded
campaign against youth drug use -- $1 billion over five years for a
prime-time advertising blitz -- will go through Congress without a penny to
combat the No. 1 drug choice among young people.

In the eyes of the National Beer Wholesalers Association -- the group
responsible for killing legislation last year to toughen drunk-driving
standards -- alcohol doesn't count when it comes to warning kids about
illegal drug use.

Karalyn Nunnallee, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving,
points out that alcohol kills six times more young people in this country
than all illicit drugs combined "and is the primary gateway drug for other
illicit drug use." Yet the campaign conducted by Gen. Barry McCaffrey,
President Clinton's director of national drug policy, in cooperation with
the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, has excluded any references to
alcohol. The partnership, a nonprofit, non-federally funded,
non-industry-supported coalition of advertising
firms, favors a separate campaign against drinking by kids. It argues that
anti-alcohol messages would inevitably dilute the focus on "culturally" very
different drugs.

Still, an anti-drug campaign that can't mention alcohol -- or binge
drinking, a serious problem across America -- is flawed.

Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard of California and Frank Wolf of Virginia are
sponsoring an amendment before the House Appropriations Committee that would
free Gen. McCaffrey of this restriction. Their point is not to detract from
anti-drug messages but to add to their effectiveness by reflecting reality.

Taxpayer dollars ought not be spent by the hundreds of millions to talk
about drugs but to remain mute on the danger of illegal alcohol use by kids.