A race is on to “get em while they’re young.” America’s beer and hard liquor companies are vying for the ultimate prize – the loyalties of young drinkers. The industries are trying to win this loyalty by creating a wide range of sweet, fruit-flavored alcoholic beverages, designed to appeal to young drinkers who don’t like the taste of alcohol.

The Sun Journal highlighted this issue in impressive detail on the front page of its Business section on Nov. 21, even localizing the issue in a side story on the related success of Lewiston’s own White Rock Distilleries.

While those involved may consider this simply an intense business competition over just another niche in the marketplace, what these stories omitted was any mention of the effect this race could have on underage drinking.

These flavored beverages are designed for and marketed to young drinkers. Even if we assume that the alcohol industry is truly aiming for only those young adults who have reached their 21st birthday, that is a dangerous target.

In fact, the Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University found that in comparing youth age (12-20 years) to young adults, ages 21-34, almost 50,000 television alcohol ads (out of the more than 200,000 that were audited) reached more youth than young adults. In other words, almost a quarter of television alcohol ad placements for beer and flavored beverages ($119 million worth of advertising) in 2001 reached underage youth more effectively than they reached the legal young adult audience.

National surveys prove that youth far younger than age 21 are attracted to these sweet, fruit-flavored drinks. The 2003 Monitoring the Future study found that 80 percent of 12th-graders who had consumed alcohol during the past month reported consuming these flavored malt beverages.

Underage and high-risk drinking has tragic and costly consequences. New research just released by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that individuals reporting first use of alcohol before age 15 were more than five times as likely to report past year alcohol dependence or abuse than persons who first used alcohol at age 21 or older.

Alcohol is the drug most commonly used by Maine’s youth, with over 75 percent of youth having experimented with alcohol by the 12th grade.

Alcohol plays a major role in all of the leading causes of death and injury among young people ages 10-24 in Maine, including motor vehicle crashes, suicide and unintentional injuries such as those due to burns, drowning and falls.

The Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation estimated the costs of medical treatment related to underage drinking in Maine to be $34 million in 2001, and ranked Maine 26th in the nation for the total costs associated with underage alcohol use.

Therefore, I would like to challenge the alcohol industry to redevelop its business plans and adopt aggressive measures to reduce the appeal of its products to teenagers, even if it means reining in their ambitious attempts to recruit drinkers in their young 20s and sacrificing some of the growth in sales volume.

The Maine Association of Prevention Programs represents community coalitions throughout Maine, including one in Lewiston/Auburn – Healthy Androscoggin – that would be more than happy to help in this effort.

Otherwise, the industry is simply continuing to reap profits by redistributing the costs associated with its product (estimated at $430 million in Maine in 2000!) to the rest of us, while ignoring the side effects of their product and their marketing.

As a business practice, this is unethical and unacceptable. As a social experiment, it is tragic.

The alcohol industry has the opportunity to do better, and Maine citizens deserve no less.

Megan Rice is the coordinator for the Maine Association of Prevention Programs.

Copy the Story Link