THE WAR ON DRUGS CAN'T IGNORE 2 BIG TARGETS: ALCOHOL, TOBACCO

The Government's Ad Blitz Misses The Mark By Ignoring The Most Widely Abused
Substances.

You probably heard the radio spots or watched the television commercials
with the message "this is your brain" as a teenager stands in the kitchen
holding up an egg. "This is heroin," she says while holding up a frying pan.
"This is what happens to your brain after snorting heroin," she says as she
smashes the egg and proceeds to get more angry and destroy the kitchen.

This scare-tactic approach works only short-term and is the latest attempt
led by the federal government to reduce drug use. The isolated focus of a
teen shooting heroin in a kitchen is powerful but minimizes the broad
problem of youth availability of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (ATOD).

Furthermore, it focuses on individual drug use and not the huge industry
that supplies drugs to youth. A mammoth marketing campaign costing taxpayers
$2 billion, this effort by the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy is the largest in history, and includes TV, radio, print and Internet
messages.

The exception is a focus on alcohol and tobacco, the largest drugs of
choice. Alcohol is the most widely used drug by young people in this country
and kills more youth than all others combined.

According to the 1997 Monitoring the Future study of 51,000 high school
students, 74.8% of 12th graders drank alcohol at least once, whereas 1.2%
used heroin and 5.5% used cocaine. High school experimentation with heroin
increased from 1% to 2% of students compared to nearly 75% who drank
alcohol.

Alcohol and tobacco together kill more than 50 times the number of people
killed by cocaine, heroin and every other drug combined. So it does not make
sense to put billions of prevention dollars into illegal-drug campaigns.

In California, youth smoking rates have risen from 10.8% in 1990 to 16.2% in
1996. Given the recent trends of binge drinking on college campuses and
alcohol's role as the No. 1 killer of youth, is there any legitimate reason
to exclude alcohol from the war on drugs?

Prevention of drug problems needs more resource allocation. To address
illegal drugs effectively, more research and strategies should be developed.
Providers have tested strategies for alcohol and tobacco, for example,
addressing promotions targeting youth, lowering youth access by decreasing
availability through policy, and the best-tested strategy--increasing price
via taxation.

Long-term tax increases, such as the 50 cents from Proposition 10, have been
shown to be the best strategy for lowering tobacco access among youth, which
in turn lowers youth smoking. If taxpayers are going to shell out to reduce
drug problems, let's at least use what works and adequately fund prevention
programs.

After adults allow the alcohol and tobacco industries to bombard youth with
liquor store and TV advertisements, we expect teens not to touch the
forbidden fruits, then we penalize them and not the profiteers. Research
shows successful prevention approaches should address the social, economic
and political environment where young people live and go to school.

Several Orange County nonprofit projects like Community Service Programs'
Project PATH, YMCA Communities in Prevention-North and Friday Night Live are
training youth and communities to address the economic and social
environment young people live in. This includes alcohol and tobacco
advertising in their neighborhoods, cheap and enticing booze near schools,
and rap music on the radio suggesting alcohol consumption, drug use and
violence.

For example, teens in Placentia and La Habra organized around the issue of
fortified products and have worked with retailers to make voluntary changes
that lower youth access to alcohol and potential violence. It is a sad day
in America when we continue to use "just say no" messages and media blitzes
to address youth drug issues.

Although the campaign is well-intended, drug use is a public health problem
that cannot be adequately addressed with a "war-like" approach led by
retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey. Science tells us that most effective
anti-tobacco ads for youth are those that attack the industry.

Our lawmakers should encourage inclusion of alcohol in national prevention
efforts to address youth smoking. Otherwise, we will continue to bang pans
and to lose a major battle on preventing drug access and use.