The 1999 National Household Survey reports some good news and has some great new features, and federal officials are using new smoking data to hammer the tobacco industry for marketing to kids. But the alcohol industry escapes unscathed despite even higher levels of youth alcohol use.

Read your local newspaper's account of the report's findings, and by-and-large you're likely to see what the Clinton administration has chosen to highlight: that past-month illicit drug use reported by 12- to 17-year-olds has fallen from 11.4 percent in 1997 to 9.9 percent in 1998, to 9 percent in 1999. Undeniably good news, but somewhat offset by the fact that current use among 18- to 25-year-olds is on the upswing -- from 14.7 percent in 1997 in 16.1 percent in 1998 to 18.8 percent in 1999 -- a fact barely mentioned in official pronouncements on the report.

Smoking among teens also is on the decline: current use of cigarettes fell from 19.9 percent in 1997 to 15.9 percent in 1999 among 12- to 17-year-olds. Rates of alcohol use, however, while relatively flat, continue at a relatively high rate: 18.6 percent of youths aged 12 to 17 reported using alcohol in the past month, while 29.4 percent of 12- to 20-year-olds drank alcohol (illegally) in the 30 days prior to the survey. For 21- to 25-year-olds, current use of alcohol jump to 60 percent of the population.

Federal officials are to be commended for including new information in the survey about young smokers' brand preferences; not surprisingly, the brands that are the most heavily advertised -- Marlboro for white and Hispanic kids, Newport for black youth -- were the most popular. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala came down hard on the tobacco industry, calling on parents, teachers, the government and the media to "help our young people see through the tobacco companies' smokescreen of deceit."

One wonders, however, where the comparable data on (and outrage over) youth alcohol brand preferences is. Indeed, while government officials continue to make illicit drug use (used, as the survey points out, by 6.7 percent of Americans over age 12, the vast majority of whom are pot-smokers) their top priority, and have now turned up the rhetorical heat on tobacco companies, the alcoholic beverage industry still gets a virtual free pass from policymakers.

If Shalala and others are willing to make the connection between brand advertising and the fact that about one in six kids under 17 smoke, for example, then the same logic should be used to chasten the alcohol industry for the fact that even more kids are drinking -- fully one-third of those under age 21. Or the fact that 21 is the age of peak prevalence for current alcohol use, binge drinking and heavy alcohol use. Or for the fact that an estimated 45 million people -- 20 percent of Americans -- engage in binge drinking.

To look at that last figure another way, consider this: three times more people in this country drink enough to be drunk at least once a month than use any amount of any kind of illicit drug. Is that entirely the fault of the alcohol industry? Of course not -- no more so than all of the problems associated with smoking can be laid at the feet of cigarette companies.

But it is odd, to say the least, when the most important substance-abuse report issued by the government includes not one word about the country's biggest dealers of psychoactive substances. Shalala promises that a forthcoming report based on the Household Survey will focus on alcohol dependency; let's hope that it pays at least a little attention to the alcohol industry's role in creating such problems, which bears at least a passing similarity to the much-maligned business practices of the tobacco industry.

Analysis by Bob Curley for Join Together.

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