THE ALCOHOL LOBBY IS INTOXICATED WITH SPIN CONTROL

By all accounts, alcohol is the most dangerous drug to young
people.

Far more than any illegal drug, alcohol is linked to the three main
causes of teen deaths: accidents, murder and suicide. It kills 61/2
times as many American youths as all illegal drugs combined.

So why do we have a national youth anti-drug campaign and not a
national anti-underage-drinking campaign? Simple: Alcohol has a better
lobby.

Six years ago, Congress enthusiastically embraced a $1 billion
campaign to get kids off illegal drugs. But proposals to include
alcohol were quickly defeated by alcohol-industry supporters. Congress
did, however, authorize $500,000 for a National Academy of Sciences
study on underage drinking that was supposed to define a national
strategy for reducing the No. 1 threat to teens.

A panel of respected researchers, academics and prevention experts was
chosen last summer, and its study is now undergoing final review.
Meanwhile, the alcohol industry and its supporters in Congress and the
administration have conducted a campaign of intimidation against the
NAS and the committee of experts that wrote the study. NAS officials
say they've never seen such intense industry interest in one of their
reports. Industry lobbyists are going all-out, and in the forefront of
their assault is, as might be expected, the National Beer Wholesalers
Association.

In Congress, the alcohol industry can be as intimidating as anybody in
Washington. The energetic leader of the beer wholesalers, David Rehr,
is closely connected to members of the House Republican leadership.
Since joining the beer wholesalers a decade ago, Rehr has transformed
the association into a cohesive network of local distributors who
donate heavily to, and lean heavily on, their members of Congress.

While the beer wholesalers and other industry groups publicly
supported the study when Congress approved it, they immediately went
on the offensive as soon as the research panel was chosen. Rehr and
other industry association leaders complained in a letter to NAS
administrators last August that the panel was biased, and they named
five panel members they insisted were particularly
objectionable.

The beer wholesalers began issuing press releases accusing the NAS of
misusing taxpayer money by choosing a panel of "controversial
individuals" who focused on antiquated or untested solutions in order
to "vilify a legal industry," although no panel members had made any
public statements about the study, nor had information about the study
been released. Next came a letter signed by 138 members of Congress
sent to the NAS president, warning him that the $500,000 appropriation
was not intended to produce policy changes that would adversely affect
the alcohol industry.

In February, a Health and Human Services administrator wrote to the
study's program officer, asking that the alcohol industry be allowed
to peer-review the report before it was released. Such a bold request
on behalf of an industry with a clear financial interest stunned the
research community. Had the program officer allowed this unprecedented
intrusion, which she didn't, it would have compromised the scientific
integrity of the report and tarnished the entire NAS research process.

The alcohol industry's political connections have reached a remarkable
level. Robert Koch is the newly installed president of the Wine
Institute, a lobby for 600 American wineries. He is also married to
President Bush's sister, Doro Bush Koch. Last year, Robert Koch was
appointed to the search committee for a new director of the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a committee made up
entirely of influential medical experts and federal research directors
- -- and one industry lobbyist.

Because substance-abuse prevention has been so widely researched, it's
very unlikely the NAS underage-drinking panel will endorse any
strategies that don't have good science behind them. The study will
probably propose a range of well-known options, from ads warning teens
about the dangers of drinking, which the alcohol industry might
accept, to restrictions on marketing and advertising, which the
industry would reject.

Even if alcohol lobbyists can't bury this study, they will try to make
sure it finds little support on Capitol Hill or in the administration,
so that the idea of a national campaign against what the American
Medical Association calls an epidemic in every community will just die
quietly.

Journalist Jim Gogek is a fellow at the health-care organization
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in New Jersey.