"The data do suggest that current drinkers have a reduced [risk] for invasive ovarian cancer, especially women who consume at least two drinks daily. This reduction

Initial results of statewide efforts to reduce student alcohol abuse at the California State University

system (23 campuses, over 400,000 students) indicate some notable early successes in CSU

Two drunk driving liability lawsuits brought against chain restaurants recently resulted in 1 large settlement and 1 large jury award, though the latter is being appealed. An Ohio-based company that owns 30 T.G.I. Friday

It’s hard to recall the last time an unpublished report with potentially serious implications for alcohol policy received so much attention. First, the July 11 Wall St Journal front-paged the pending National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on underage drinking. WSJ outlined the story so far, and focused on the "fierce lobbying battle" between the industry and public health advocates (See June AII for details.) CNN ran a story and debate on the same day. Three days later, The Washington Post ran an editorial penned by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation "fellow" Jim

Gogek who criticized the industry’s (especially NBWA’s) "campaign of intimidation against the NAS." Then Knight Ridder picked up the story and ran it in a number of papers across the US. The

Gogek op-ed appeared in a number of other newspapers as well. The broad, ongoing exposure of this saga shows once again the importance of the underage drinking issue and may add to pressures to adopt any NAS recommendations.

"People briefed on [the NAS] deliberations say the panel is likely to call for a comprehensive federal strategy to target underage drinking, including higher excise taxes and limits on advertising," the Wall Street Journal reported. NAS may also recommend more restrictions on youth access to alcohol, and potentially a "media campaign aimed at parents." But a NAS spokesperson told WSJ the report was "still deep in review and will not be released for another month or more." In the Washington Post, Gogek slammed NBWA and raised questions about the influence in Washington DC of Wine Institute’s new president and long-time lobbyist Bobby Koch. Koch’s tie to the Bush family (he’s married to President Bush’s sister) has long been known inside the industry, but is less well known outside the industry. The day after Gogek’s op-ed ran, NBWA sent a 3-page letter to all House members. NBWA president Dave Rehr called the op-ed "factually inaccurate" and linked Gogek to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) multi-million dollar efforts to "publicly condemn the licensed beverage industry." Rehr also cited the long-term decline in underage drinking rates, detailed the "biased and unbalanced" NAS process (including a charge that NAS "has never opened materials submitted by NBWA" about wholesaler responsibility programs), and invited House members to contact NAS with some pointed questions about its process and panel.

At the same time, the RWJF-funded Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) released yet another report that criticizes industry advertising practices. This time CAMY reports a survey that suggests most parents believe advertising has a "serious effect on teen drinking habits" and that "almost ¾ of parents fault alcohol companies for the amount of ads that teens see and hear." Predictably, a majority of parents found it "troubling" when told about previous CAMY findings that youth are "over exposed" to alcohol ads. Like its earlier efforts, nothing in the new CAMY report ties advertising to actual drinking habits (more on CAMY below). CNN’s "Money & Markets" program featured a debate between CAMY’s Jim O’Hara and John Doyle of the American Beverage Institute, which represents large chain on-premise retailers. In a heated exchange, Doyle pressed two points: 1) that the NAS panel recommendations were a "foregone conclusion" given the biases of the members; and 2) the industry has spent millions of dollars on education programs that have worked to help reduce underage drinking. O’Hara defended the panel and referred back to FTC’s 1999 recommendation of a third-party review of alcohol advertising. Meanwhile, NAS responded to letters from 138 House members warning NAS not to overstep its bounds and advance policy that would "adversely affect the beverage industry." In this letter, NAS President Bruce Alberts assured House members that the academy’s "extensive consultations" with relevant scientific experts "enable us to provide a balanced and independent response." NAS considered input from the public and other "stakeholders," he added. Finally, "the draft report is subjected to a rigorous external review by experts with knowledge in areas relevant to the topic," Alberts assured, "to ensure that the committee’s report fully addresses" the Congressional request. He did not specifically address the House members’ reminder that industry programs be reviewed or their policy concerns.

Also in the wings: a Federal Trade Commission report due late this summer on whether alcohol beverage marketing, especially marketing of malternatives, unfairly targets youth. Recall that just a year ago, FTC rejected CSPI’s contention that malternatives were "targeted to minors." Interestingly, FTC recently released a "staff report" that advocated looser regulations on selling wine direct to consumers, and downplayed the suggestion that such shipments would increase underage drinking. Is the FTC seeking more influence over alcohol policies in general? If so, in what direction would it lean? Will the NAS report, whatever it recommends, have the kind of broad influence over tax or advertising policy that industry members seem to fear? Stay tuned.

MADD’s director of traffic safety and enforcement, Jim Fell, reminded once again that MADD’s true goal is to stop all drinking and driving, not simply drunk driving. "At MADD, we say don’t drink and drive. There is no safe level. While we believe that .08 is the right level for the law, even at lower blood-alcohol levels, some people are affected," Fell recently told Health Scout News.

Attacks on alcohol beverage advertising are not limited to the US. A lengthy analysis of the UK landscape recently suggested "ministers are considering new laws to ban alcohol commercials on television before the 9 PM watershed and to end self-regulation of the advertising industry, " wrote the Independent. The article quoted Hugh Burkitt, who has chaired a large ad agency and sat on Britain’s Ad Standards Authority. He blasted several alcohol beverage ads for "stepping over the boundaries of taste and decency" and criticized industry self-regulators for being too lenient. (Burkitt made similar comments in a presentation to the International Center for Alcohol Policies last fall in Dublin.) Indeed, descriptions of several British beer, liquor and flavored alcohol beverage ads make Miller’s "Catfight" ads seem tame by comparison. The Independent referred to "an outpouring of sexual braggadocio."

A spokesperson for the Portman Group, which represents the industry in the UK, acknowledged that "it is important that producers do rein back a bit," but she defended self-regulation: "It is not a question of the rules needing to be tightened up – the rules are fine. It is a question of whether the regulators are applying the code of conduct rigorously enough." Portman recently ruled the ads for the alcopop called FCUK unacceptable; it is still "considering the case" of another brand called Roxxoff, according to the Independent. It’s likely that as European countries continue to place further restrictions on advertising – France bans all television ads for alcohol beverages, Germany bans spirits ads and Ireland recently banned television ads before 10 PM – pressures in the US will only mount.

There’s still plenty of interest in campus drinking issues, but no consensus about the best ways to approach them. That’s the message from a wide-ranging panel discussion at the annual meeting of state alcohol beverage regulators (NCSLA) and the continuing flow of research findings about campus programs. The most provocative comment from the panel: psychologist/professor Dr. Jeff Schaler suggested the US "abolish the drinking age entirely" and leave it up to families to educate young people about alcohol, establish rules about drinking and set "real consequences" for misbehavior. He called the 21 yr-old minimum age law in US "uniquely hypocritical" given lower minimum age levels for military service and other privileges. The suggestion of a lower drinking age (or none at all) was predictably perfectly acceptable to the college student/fraternity member on the panel. It did not go over well with the state official -- Gig Robinson from West Virginia—who recommended a comprehensive campus-community-industry approach that "empowers and engages students" at all levels.

The director of Student Development Programs at Washington University, Sarah Feyerherm, wasn’t ready to abolish the minimum age either, but she did say underage drinking, in and of itself, is simply "not the biggest issue" at her campus. Most of the current attention to campus drinking is "driven by the legal environment" (schools fear being sued) and law enforcement, she said, rather than by the more appropriate university mission of encouraging education and personal growth. Unfortunately, she did not offer any advice about how to resolve that conflict.

Most early evaluations of "social norms" campus programs – which educate students that actual campus drinking levels or "norms" are lower than most students think -- have been positive. But the authors of a recent review of a brief social norms campaign at a large state university cast doubt on its effectiveness and urged universities and colleges to "be prudent to proceed with care before adopting this approach wholesale." This short, 6-week study found that students exposed to a social norms marketing program had reduced misperceptions of how much their peers drank. But they "drank more frequently" after the program "than did their counterparts" not exposed to the social norms marketing. Researchers flooded a dorm where mostly college freshmen resided with social norms posters and literature. After 6 weeks, the students’ perceived consumption levels of their peers decreased. Yet researchers found a "significant" increase in drinks consumed per occasion, heavy episodic drinking in past 2 weeks and the number of days with at least one drink in past 4 weeks among those who saw the materials. Ref 3