LAWMAKER SEEKS TO HIT ALCOHOL IN ANTI-DRUG ADS

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-Calif.) 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 Barry
McCaffrey, the director of national drug policy.

Teenagers' wider use of alcohol than 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 also 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 subcommittee that
he lacked the authority to spend federal money on anti-alcohol messages in
the media campaign, which has now reached 102 cities.

The law passed by Congress creating the anti-drug 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.

Charles Blanchard, the chief counsel for McCaffrey, said that media outlets
had been asked to match the federal funds they get for running the antidrug
ads by supplying additional public service announcements or programming.

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.

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

Tamara Tyrrell, the director of public affairs for the National Beer
Wholesalers' Association, said the amendment "is not the proper way to solve
the problem" of underage drinking. Beer wholesalers already spend hundreds
of thousands of dollars on alcohol awareness programs, she said.

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a coalition of advertising and
public-relations professionals that is coordinating the antidrug media
campaign, has also found itself in the awkward position of opposing the
amendment.

"You can't simply assume that the antidrug campaign can be widened to
include something as huge as underage drinking," said Stephen Dnistrian, the
partnership's spokesman.