BID TO INCLUDE ALCOHOL IN ANTI-DRUG EFFORT IS RESISTED

Congress: Underage drinking, more prevalent than marijuana use,isn't part of
the national drug policy.

Evidence abounds that beer is more popular with adolescents than
marijuana.Yet while the government is spending $195 million this year
on its national media campaign to dissuade adolescents from using
illicit drugs, not a penny of the appropriated tax dollars goes to
warn about the dangers of drinking.

So this month, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Los Angeles, introduced
an amendment allowing underage drinking to be included among the
advertising campaign's targets. Her effort has not pleased beer
wholesalers, some other members of Congress or even the White House's
Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"We are neither endorsing nor opposing that proposal for inclusion of
alcohol in the media campaign," said Robert Weiner, the spokesman for
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of national drug policy.

Teen-agers' wider use of alcohol over drugs has been documented in the
annual survey of adolescent drug use by researchers at the University
of Michigan. In 1998, the survey reported, 74 percent of the high
school seniors sampled said they had drunk alcohol in the previous
year, and nearly one-third said they had gotten drunk within the last
month. In comparison, 38 percent of the seniors said they had smoked
marijuana during the previous year.

McCaffrey himself has expressed concern about alcohol use by the
young. "It's the biggest drug-abuse problem for adolescents, and it's
linked to the use of other, illegal drugs," he said at a news
conference Feb. 8.

But a month later, McCaffrey told a House Appropriations sub-committee
that he lacked the authority to spend federal money on anti-alcohol
messages in the media campaign, which has now reached 102 cities
across the country.

The law passed by Congress creating the antidrug media campaign does
not define "drug." But the earlier law creating the White House
national drug control office limits its authority to combating
controlled substances, thereby excluding alcohol.

Roybal-Allard, a subcommittee member, said she was sufficiently upset
by McCaffrey's remarks to put forward her amendment, which may be
voted on next month. "They're not getting at the root of the problem,
which is underage drinking," she said in a telephone interview from
Washington.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., joined Roybal-Allard as a co-sponsor. "You're
finding more young people dying of alcohol-related problems than of
drugs," Wolf said. He said he wanted to let McCaffrey include underage
drinking in the media campaign "if he thinks it's appropriate."

But the White House drug-control office says it does not want to
tinker with the campaign's efforts to change youth attitudes about
drugs, and possibly dilute the message about drugs.

Charles Blanchard, chief counsel for McCaffrey, said media outlets had
been asked to match the federal funds they get for running the
anti-drug ads by supplying additional public service announcements or
programming. He estimated that 15 percent of these would address
underage drinking.

Even if these anti-alcohol messages appear, critics say, they would
account for little more than 7 percent of the advertising messages in
the campaign.

Karolyn Nunnallee, the national president of Mothers Against Drunk
Driving, accused the White House drug office of ignoring the problem
of underage drinking.

"To say the MADD is a little upset over Gen. McCaffrey and the
direction he has chosen to take would probably be an understatement,"
Nunnalle said in a telephone interview from her home in For Meade,
Fla.

The American Medical Association, the American Public Health
Association, the American Society of Addiction Medicine and other
medical, church and community groups also support the amendment.

Opposition in the House is forming around Rep. Anne Northup, R-Ky.,
who promises to kill the amendment when it comes up for a vote.

"I think everybody appreciates Ms. Roybal-Allard's concern," Northup
said. But, she added, "there are a number of people that believe that
drugs are unique and we shouldn't confuse the messages and diminish
them."

"The message about drugs is don't ever do it, not at any age and
type," Northup said. "That is not the message about alcohol, just like
it's not the message of sex."

Roybal-Allard said the solution could be as simple as concluding each
anti-drug message by asking parents to "talk to your children about
drugs - and alcohol."

In fact, the White House's national drug strategy has as its first
goal to "educate and enable America's youth to reject illegal drugs as
well as alcohol and tobacco."

The strategy also identifies drinking as a gateway to illicit drug
use. It says that adults who started drinking as children are nearly
eight times more likely to use cocaine than adults who did not do so.

The House Appropriations Committee has not yet considered the
amendment on underage drinking because some Democratic members of
Congress have attached gun-control amendments to the legislation,
which is a Treasury and general government appropriations bill. A vote
looks unlikely before mid-June.

With enough public support, Roybal-Allard said, "I think we're going
to win on this. I just can't imagine someone voting against it."

But, she added, "The industries opposing it are very, very powerful."