National Academies Present Strategy

To Curb Underage Drinking

WASHINGTON, D.C. –– More young people drink alcohol than use other drugs or smoke tobacco, and underage drinking costs the nation an estimated $53 billion annually in losses stemming from traffic fatalities, violent crime, and other behaviors.

A new report by the federally created National Research Council and Institute of Medicine of the National Academies encourages the implementation of a strategy that would engage alcohol manufacturers, retail businesses, and the entertainment industry in a commitment to minimize advertising targeting underage audiences.

Advertisements for alcohol, for example, often appear during programs where the percentage of underage viewers is greater than their percentage in the overall US population. The study recommends that trade associations and individual companies in the alcohol industry should strengthen their advertising codes and prohibit commercial message placement in venues where a large portion of the audience is underage.

Federal and state governments should help forge the commitment to curtail alcohol consumption by minors, the report adds. For example, the federal government should do more to educate adults about existing laws and the consequences of underage drinking. The overall goal of the strategy is to promote public awareness of the importance of reducing underage drinking, as well as greater accountability in mass communication.

Representatives from the American Beverage Institute, however, believe that the industry already complies with necessary standards. Further, John Doyle, executive director of the institute, refers to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, an organization affiliated with the National Academies, as “neoprohibitionist.” The Institute website devotes an entire forum citing examples of the foundation’s philanthropic support of “anti-alcohol organizations from 1998 to 2002.”

For more information, visit the Institute of Medicine website www.iom.edu or, for a contrasting perspective, the American Beverage Institute at www.abionline.org.