Alcohol Policy Conference Emphasizes Use of Taxation, Advertising Regulation to Reduce Underage Drinking

Statistics on underage drinking are troubling. The average American child tries alcohol before the age of 13. Youth who drink before they turn 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who start drinking at 21. Young drivers are involved in alcohol-related traffic crashes more often than any other age group. And the consequences of underage drinking have huge economic costs—more than $58 billion per year.

Fortunately, policy and environmental changes, such as the minimum drinking age, limits on alcohol sales-outlet density, enforcement of DUI laws, and controls on alcohol advertising have significantly curtailed underage drinking and its consequences. On March 13-16,

2003, nearly 400 researchers, policy advocates, health professionals, and civic leaders came together to examine the state of alcohol policy and discuss emerging research on the effectiveness of existing strategies. “Alcohol Policy 13—Preventing Alcohol Problems Among Youth: Policy Approaches,” was sponsored by EDC’s Health and Human Development Programs and held at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Two of the major themes of the conference were alcohol taxation and alcohol advertising to youth. “Increasing state alcohol taxes would not only provide more money to reduce problems caused by alcohol abuse, it would also reduce alcohol abuse itself by raising prices,” said Jim Gogek, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation fellow. Conference co-director Joel Epstein echoed this sentiment, adding that alcohol taxation is an opportunity for states to follow meaningful and realistic prevention and treatment goals. “Conference participants have the opportunity to go back to their states and advance a more realistic prevention agenda,” he added.

Keynote speaker Robin Room, PhD, a sociologist at the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs at Stockholm University, said that emerging research is showing that restricting or regulating alcohol advertising and promotions may also help prevent alcohol problems. Along those lines, James F. Mosher of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, offered “six modest proposals” to the alcohol beverage industry to prevent alcohol problems among youths:

• Stop over-exposing young people to your advertising. “The beer and distilled spirits industry should follow the wine industry's lead in its advertising practices.”
  
  
• Implement and expand the minimal FTC recommendations in its 1999 report for voluntary advertising reform.
  
  
• Take down the billboards in inner city communities and stop the predatory marketing in ethnic/racial communities.
  
  
• Draw the line on products that are obviously designed for young teenagers, such as alco-pops and zipper shots.
  
  
• To the distillers, stop marketing your low alcohol coolers as if they were beers. “You know that they constitute distilled spirits under federal and state laws. Your marketing is a fraudulent attempt to compete with the beer industry for the underage market.”
  
  
• The youth consumption accounts for at a minimum 11 percent of the alcohol market, generating sales in the neighborhood of $10 billion. “You say you don't want these revenues. Turn these ‘unwanted profits’ over to public health and law enforcement agencies across the country to help defray the costs associated with youth drinking.”

The conference may also have an international impact. At the end of the conference, attendees adopted a “Sense of the Conference Resolution” that calls for the U.S. Trade Representatives to reject the European Union’s request to include alcohol- and tobacco-related services in the negotiations on the EU’s General Agreement on Trade in Services, fearing that its inclusion could lead to the reduction or elimination of certain U.S. laws and regulations implemented by states and communities to control harm related to alcohol and tobacco consumption. In addition, the resolution asks the U.S. Trade Representative to promote fuller inclusion of the public health community in negotiations.

The conference was supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, with in-kind support from numerous other groups and organizations.

Download presentations delivered at the conference