THE WRONG MESSAGE - KIDS ENCOURAGED TO USE ALCOHOL, DRUGS

Who's to blame that San Diego high school students are drinking more
alcohol and smoking more cigarettes and marijuana? We all are.

Consider the mixed messages we send to impressionable teens:

We tell them drinking is bad for them, then we bombard them with
commercials and advertisements geared toward kids that say beer is cool or
funny.

We tell them smoking cigarettes is bad, but then they see Joe Camel and the
Marlboro Man at every turn.

We tell them drugs are bad, then legalize marijuana, supposedly for
medicinal purposes.

The 1997 San Diego Youth Risk Behavior survey found that the number of kids
who say they've tried alcohol, and the number who engage in heavy drinking,
continues to rise. Cigarette smoking is also up. Nearly one in four kids
say they smoke, while more than one in four binge drink, which means
consuming five or more drinks in one sitting. That's very dangerous
behavior for a kid.

We shouldn't be surprised, though. Every time a kid turns on the TV, he
sees a beer commercial. Usually, they're commercials of young people acting
cool. Or worse -- the Budweiser frogs and lizards. There's no question
those commercials are attractive to kids. While many people rail against
tobacco's use of images like Joe Camel to attract kids, the beer industry
does something very similar with the Budweiser frogs. And it's just as
irresponsible.

What's more, the alcohol industry produces products directly targeted at
young people. "Alcopops," sweet malted beverages that are nothing more than
alcohol-fortified lemonade and ginger ale, have become the fastest growing
new alcohol product of all time. And that's because of the youth market.

Hypocrisy on drugs is just as bad. When Californians voted to legalize
medicinal marijuana in 1996, it was a direct message to kids that drugs are
OK.

The youth risk study showed that nearly half of all high school kids in San
Diego have smoked marijuana and that about one in four has used it in the
last month. Sixteen percent have used harder drugs. Those figures are
steady increases over recent years.

That's no surprise in a state where up until this week, dope dealers were
selling their product retail through marijuana-buyer clubs. The state
Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that Proposition 215 did not
allow anyone to sell marijuana in a commercial enterprise. But until that
court decision, marijuana clubs were selling pot to anybody for any
supposed ailment.

Kids are adept at seeing through hypocrisy. They never buy the adage: Do as
I say, not as I do. They look around and see a thousand messages screaming
at them from television, billboards, magazines and newspapers that tobacco,
alcohol and drugs are OK. And they act accordingly.