Alcohol and Kids: It's Time for Candor A Series of Recent Government Studies Shows That Alcohol Abuse Is by Far the Biggest Drug Problem Facing America's Youth, and Existing Laws Do Little to Address It

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ONE pressure young people face makes my job, and our hopes for the future, inherently more difficult: the pressure to drink alcohol.

Alcohol is truly the mainstream drug-abuse issue plaguing most communities and families in America today.

We must realize how confusing the mixed messages are that we send to our children about alcohol. We've made progress in the war against illicit drugs because our youth have gotten consistent messages from their families, their schools, their churches, their communities, their nation - and their media.

We're losing the war against underage use of alcohol, however, because our youth receive some very mixed messages. …