"Joe Camel Meets Joe Sixpack." That was the title of one presentation at the recent National Conference of State Liquor Administrators. Regulators from Louisiana and Iowa detailed "sting" operations their alcohol beverage agencies undertook to crack down on retailers that sell tobacco to minors. Increased emphasis on tobacco control by alcohol beverage agencies may seem like a natural "fit" to many regulators, politicians and the public, given the society

On-premise retailers view .08 as the #1 "threat" to their businesses, Debra Leach, executive director of the National Licensed Beverage Association, which represents approximately 14,000 licensees in 37 states, pointed out in a recent speech to the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators. She questioned what the MADD-distiller partnership to pass .08 bills (when part of "comprehensive" anti-drunk driving legislation) meant for other items on MADD

The House bill to roll back beer excise taxes to the pre-1990 level has gathered 170 co-sponsors, including Republican leaders Reps. Armey and DeLay as well as Democratic leaders Reps. Gephardt and Bonior. That

Policymakers and advocates fail to fully recognize the major change in attitudes and awareness that have occurred in the last 15 years,

especially among youth and especially about drinking and driving. To the extent that a higher minimum age may have contributed to those changes, is it still necessary? Perhaps those changed attitudes can be more effectively sustained and even further advanced by less blunt, more equitable policies. For example, three academics recently proposed an interesting alternative to zero tolerance: a provisional drinking license. Writing in the Providence Journal after the first Bush daughter incident, sociologist and alcohol researcher David Hanson (State University of New York, Potsdam), widely-published anthropologist Dwight Heath (Brown) and college dean Joel Rudy (Ohio University) suggested a "system of gradual access to alcohol beverages by consumption-inclined 19 and 20-yr olds." Patterned after policies that increase driving privileges as teens age and receive training, such licenses might allow, for example, 19- and 20-year-olds to drink in restaurants but not bars, or during limited time periods, or only after alcohol education, and with parental permission. Such provisional drinking licenses, they added, could be adopted without "any changes to the current .02 percent blood-alcohol-limit laws for under-21 drivers." Another alternative, one that doesn

Amidst the flurry of attention to the Bush daughters’ recent drinking incidents, some in the media challenged the wisdom of a minimum purchase age of 21. They focused on what The Economist bluntly called "America’s absurd insistence that people cannot drink until the age of 21," especially given the right of younger citizens to drive, vote, wed, sign contracts, purchase weapons, have abortions, etc. But our "morally confused" approach (as described in a Wall St Journal op-ed) has not been seriously challenged since the US Supreme Court upheld the 1994 law that withheld highway funds from states that did not adopt 21 as the minimum purchase age. The few legislative attempts to reverse the law went nowhere. Industry executives brave enough to question 21 are roundly criticized, even while most go out of their way to support initiatives to reduce underage drinking. (Some even suggest that penalties for underage drinking ought to be tougher and more widely imposed than they are now.) Meanwhile, policy advocates continue to insist that the higher drinking age saves lives. As a result, other than a handful of academics and college administrators (see below), few key policymakers seriously advocate reconsideration of the minimum age. Pundits, not politicians, led the recent round of comments. At the recent National Conference of State Liquor Administrators, the regulators who enforce these laws, the topic did not even come up at any of the sessions.

Two key claims sustain the higher minimum age: 1) it leads to fewer drunk-driving deaths,

especially among young drivers; 2) it deters

even younger teens (under 18) from drinking. The advocates have clearly won the first point. Despite some contrary research, and the fact that states have adopted scores of other anti-drunk driving policies over the last 20 years, the federal government insists that higher minimum age laws continue to save lives. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently "estimated that these laws have reduced traffic fatalities involving drivers 18-20 years old by 13% and have saved 19,121 lives since 1975. In 1999 an estimated 901 lives were saved by minimum drinking age laws." MADD constantly cites these figures. Virtually no one publicly challenges them. There is also support for the second point. Even though many teens continue to drink, the percentage of teens who admit to drinking has declined, a trend that the industry itself has publicized. In 1985, before all states adopted the higher minimum age, 41% of 12-17 year olds said they drank at least once per month, and 66% of high school seniors were at least monthly drinkers, according to national surveys. By 1991 those figures had fallen to 27% and 54% respectively. By 1998, those figures had fallen to 19% and 52% respectively. Trends like these, even if not directly attributable to minimum age policy, together with America’s overwhelming desire to protect youth, tend to trump arguments about fairness.

Most observers of the US Supreme Court

Another "population-wide intervention" involving alcohol beverages which was enthusiastically embraced by control advocates was the adoption of warning labels on all packages in 1989. Subsequent research has usually indicated warnings haven

A recent study of 30 states that adopted lower BAC limits for teen drivers found subsequent "declines of 19% and 23% in self-reported driving after drinking and driving after heavy drinking." But the same study, which reviewed 1984-1998 data from the annual Monitoring the Future surveys, found no significant changes in drinking habits and an increase in the average number miles driven by high school seniors. Nor did the study find a decline in riding with a driver who had been drinking. The fact that reported driving after drinking declined without similar declines in drinking or driving, the authors wrote, "substantially increases the plausibility" that the lower BAC limits had a "causal" effect. But a closer look at the study makes you wonder. First, there

Just as adopting "alcohol-free" dormitory policies apparently does little to deter drinking among college students (see February AII), campus-wide alcohol bans don