Majority of Survey Respondents Favor Stricter Controls on Alcohol Sales, Advertising and Promotion; Would Ban or Restrict Drinking in City Streets, Stadiums and at Beaches.

Princeton, NJ-- An overwhelming majority of Americans view underage drinking as a significant problem and support measures that would help reduce teen drinking, according to a new survey released today by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In fact, 96 percent of survey respondents said they are concerned about teen drinking. This overwhelming support for strong measures to prevent teen drinking cuts across all demographic lines including age, gender, ethnicity, political ideology and geographic regions.

The national survey indicates that Americans would support a wide variety of policies aimed at curbing underage drinking, including restrictions on drinking in public places, stricter controls on alcohol sales, advertising and promotions, and bans on certain types of alcohol sales, such as home delivery. Americans would also favor raising alcohol taxes to pay for alcohol prevention and treatment programs.

The survey and resulting report were based on the responses of 7,021 people between April and October of 1997. Sampling error for items from this survey is plus or minus 2 percent based on a 95% confidence interval. The survey was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., under the direction of Alexander C. Wagenaar, Ph.D., director of the Alcohol Epidemiology Program at the University of Minnesota.

"Underage drinking is a vast problem with grave consequences. It is a factor in nearly half of all teen automobile crashes, the leading cause of death among teens. Beyond that, alcohol contributes to suicides, homicides and fatal injuries, and is a factor in sexual assaults and date rapes. Obviously, something needs to be done to avoid these serious problems," said RWJF vice president Nancy Kaufman. "Clearly, Americans are not interested in returning to the days of prohibition, but this survey demonstrates that the American public is concerned and wants to see policies put in place that will help prevent our teenagers from drinking."

Eighty-two percent of respondents would be willing to raise alcohol taxes by 5 cents per drink if the funds were used to pay for programs to prevent minors from drinking and to increase alcohol treatment programs. Nearly three-quarters (70 percent) would support the tax if it were used to lower other taxes such as income taxes. Just 37 percent would support the increase if it were used to pay for any government program and not targeted to tax relief or alcohol prevention.

More than half of respondents favored restrictions on alcohol advertising, with 63 percent favoring bans on billboard advertising, 67 percent opposing the use of cartoons or youth-oriented music materials on alcoholic beverage packaging and 59 percent banning the use of sports teams and athletes as symbols in advertising. Two-thirds of all respondents would ban all advertisement of hard liquor on TV, and 61 percent would ban all advertisement of beer and wine on TV.

One of the more significant findings from the survey was the fact that an overwhelming majority of respondents (82 percent) believe that stores and bars are too lax in preventing teenagers from buying alcohol. Over three-quarters of survey respondents favored setting a minimum age requirement of 21 for servers. Nearly 90 percent of all respondents favored training for both owners and servers regarding how to better deal with drunken customers and teenage drinkers.

The survey also indicates that respondents believe that the adults providing alcohol to teens, as well as the teens themselves, are responsible for the problems associated with teen drinking. Almost three-quarters of respondents agreed that punishment would help deter youth drinking. Given this, more than 83 percent supported penalties for adults who provide alcohol to underage drinkers and 66 percent supported compliance checks on alcohol distributors.

Other significant findings highlighted by the survey:

More than 89 percent of respondents would support restrictions on drinking alcoholic beverages on city streets, at parks and on college campuses. More than 80 percent would restrict drinking at concerts and beaches, while 77 percent would favor restrictions at sports stadiums.

Survey respondents favored a variety of regulations on the sale and distribution of alcohol. Over 60 percent supported registration numbers for beer kegs that would make the keg traceable to the person who bought it. Fifty-nine percent favored banning home delivery of alcohol, but just 31 percent favored banning the sale of beer kegs for individual use. Less than half of the respondents (40 percent) supported bans on "happy hours."

Three-quarters of respondents favored a "zero-tolerance" policy for young drivers where a teenager would be punished if he/she tested positive for any amount of alcohol in their blood. Women were most supportive (80%), with men less supportive (66%).

Nearly half of all respondents said that someone close to them had a drinking problem, and 23 percent reported knowing someone who had been seriously injured by a drunk driver.

Republicans and Democrats responded alike to almost all of the questions. Republicans were as likely as Democrats to agree with statements suggesting more policies to prevent teenage drinking.

"Whether Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, citizens across the country clearly want effective regulation of alcohol promotion and sales," said Wagenaar. "Building safe and healthy communities requires it."

The survey was commissioned by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its collaboration with the American Medical Association on two programs that seek to confront the issues and problems associated with youth and alcohol, and create solutions through environmental change. Reducing Underage Drinking seeks to decrease underage drinking and alcohol-related problems among youth. A Matter of Degree works to reduce binge drinking in 10 college-campus communities and the many problems associated with it, including alcohol poisoning deaths, car crash fatalities, injuries, suicide, sexual assault and other physical violence, property damage, academic failure and other harmful behavior.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the nation's largest philanthropy supporting health and health care in the United States. The Foundation concentrates its grantmaking in three goal areas: (1) to assure that all Americans have access to basic health care at reasonable cost; (2) to improve the way services are organized and provided to people with chronic health conditions; and (3) to reduce the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse -- tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.

For more information, contact: Linda Loranger or Prabhu Ponkshe, 301-652-1558.