ANTIDRUG AD BLITZ CRITICIZED FOR OMITTING 'DRUG OF CHOICE'

On Capitol Hill, Pressure Mounts To Include Underage Drinking In $1 Billion
Campaign.

WASHINGTON

College-bound Brendan Brogan feels fortunate. Back when he was 14, the New
Jersey teen survived a night of binge-drinking that left him hospitalized.

Four years later, Mr. Brogan is urging the government to help millions of
other youths avoid the same mistake by including alcohol warnings in a
major new campaign against drug abuse.

So far, he has failed - but not for lack of compelling arguments.

"Most kids know exactly where they can get alcohol if they want to," Brogan
says, citing studies showing that 90 percent of 10th-graders consider
alcohol easy to obtain.

Readily available and culturally condoned, alcohol is the most widely used
drug among youths - "the drug of choice," as Brogan puts it - with teen
consumption on the rise since the early 1990s.

Moreover, studies show alcohol is a "gateway drug"; underage youths who
drink are several times more likely to take up illicit drugs.

So why, Brogan and other advocates ask, has the Clinton administration's
drug-control office excluded alcohol prevention from its five-year, nearly
$1 billion National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign - the biggest national
media blitz of its kind?

"We're baffled at why it seems to be ignored," says George Hacker, director
of the alcohol-policies project at the Center for Science in the Public
Interest (CSPI) here.

Dozens of groups, including CSPI, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) are lobbying for the campaign to
include anti-alcohol messages.

The omission has also drawn concern on Capitol Hill, where a bipartisan
group of House lawmakers is backing a provision that would explicitly allow
the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), which is
running the campaign, to air "messages discouraging underage alcohol
consumption." The measure passed a House Appropriations Subcommittee last
month and is expected to come before the full committee this month.

Backers of the House measure, sponsored by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D)
of California, face strong opposition from the alcoholic-beverage industry,
especially beer wholesalers, and some lawmakers such as Rep. Anne Northup
(R) of Kentucky. Ms. Northup received more than $38,000 from beer, wine,
and liquor groups in 1997 and 1998, more than any House Appropriations
Committee member, according to CSPI.

Still, even if the House measure prevails, officials from the drug-control
office, headed by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, say they have no intention of
changing the Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

"There are no plans right now that I am aware of to include anti-alcohol,"
messages in the campaign, says Charles Blanchard, chief counsel for the
McCaffrey office.

The ONDCP contends it was not authorized by the original 1998 legislation
to address underage alcohol use in the campaign. Although that legislation
does not define "drugs," the ONDCP's statute refers to drugs as "controlled
substances," which are in turn defined in another act as excluding alcohol,
Mr. Blanchard says. (He acknowledges, however, that one could argue that
the ONDCP is not bound by such a narrow definition.)

As a result, to "mindlessly" add anti-alcohol messages at this late stage
would tax resources, diluting the rest of the campaign and resulting in "a
failure," Blanchard says.

"With the appropriation we have now [$185 million for 2000], we are barely
able to meet the reach and frequency of advertising that it takes to cut
through the clutter," he says, adding, "We have to act as if we were Nike."

In addition, far more research is needed to gauge which antidrinking
messages work among different age groups and to create appropriate ads,
ONDCP argues.

"We agree there should be an anti-alcohol campaign," Says Blanchard, "but
we need to do it right so it will work."

Yet such arguments do not sway anti-alcohol groups and their supporters on
Capitol Hill.

"This is the first time this much money has been spent in a concerted
effort at the national level on a problem like this, and adding alcohol
would be a breakthrough," says Brandy Anderson, director of state
legislative affairs for MADD.

Anti-alcohol messages are an essential component of such a media drive,
because of the close link between underage alcohol abuse and later use of
illicit drugs, advocates argue.

Government statistics show that the average age children start drinking
alcohol is 13, and 3 out of 5 teens have had an alcoholic drink in the last
month, says Ms. Roybal-Allard. And "more than 67 percent of kids who start
drinking before age 15 end up using illicit drugs," she says.

Including alcohol warnings could be as simple as adding a few words at the
conclusion of each antidrug ad, says Roybal-Allard.

However, Mr. Hacker and other advocates contend that fear of alcohol
industry retaliation is preventing other lawmakers and officials from
taking that step.