Drug Campaign

Re Robert Scheer’s Column Left, March 11: Perhaps the ABC television network earnestly wants to do some good for young people and their parents, but partnering with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America is not the way to accomplish that goal. Scheer is right: Alcohol is America’s No. 1 drug problem, costing society more than $85 billion in economic costs and untold pain and suffering. It is even our biggest illegal problem when you consider underage drinking.

The evidence indicates that the most effective way to reduce death and disease from alcohol, particularly among youth, is to raise the price. I venture we will never see a public service campaign calling for an increase in excise taxes for alcohol. Certainly not when the brewers are among the advertising industry’s and broadcasters’ biggest supporters.

Public service advertising does more harm than good when it keeps the public mind on the least effective strategies for dealing with problems that require not just personal behavior change but also social change. ABC can do better.

LORI DORFMAN, Co-Director

Berkeley Media Studies Group