If alcoholic beverage companies were serious about preventing underage drinking they would quit making their own prevention messages, do more to ensure that their advertising doesn't reach youth, and fund legitimate public-health interventions to prevent abuse of their products, according to David Jernigan, Ph.D., research director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University.

During an interview with Join Together at the recent Alcohol Policy 13 conference in Cambridge, Mass., Jernigan said the industry, which has produced campaigns with slogans such as "Know When to Say When" and "Think Before You Drink," has no business being involved in efforts to curb underage or excessive drinking.

"The basic interests of the industry do not overlap with public health," said Jernigan. "If they acted in a responsible way, they'd lose one-half of their market."

Jernigan contends that most alcohol sold in the U.S. is consumed in settings where people are having more than 4 drinks at a sitting -- a message echoed by multiple speakers at the conference. That level of consumption meets the current definition of binge drinking, experts said.

Banning ads from TV shows that have more than 10 percent youth viewership is just one example of the ways alcohol companies could get serious about prevention, Jernigan said.

"Legal sales of alcohol in the U.S. total $135 billion each year," he said. "The alcohol industry can legally protect this enormous business by lobbying and making campaign donations. This economic and political power is a tremendous counterweight to public health when it comes to making public policy."

"But the bottom line is that this industry could do better voluntarily," he continued. "We as a citizenry and our government can hold it accountable for doing better. Whether it comes from regulation or is voluntary, I don't care."

Jernigan said that the long fight to control advertising of tobacco products holds some lessons for advocates fighting alcohol abuse, including the value of counter-advertising.

"We know from our experience with tobacco counter-advertising in the 1970s that you don't have to have a one-to-one match of counter advertising to product marketing in order to have an effect," he said. "The tobacco counter-ads weren't nearly at the level of what the Truth campaign is doing today, and yet they were enough to ultimately drive tobacco advertising off television completely."

Jernigan said alcohol, with its short-term health and social consequences, is a much more complex issue than tobacco from a public-health perspective. "At the same time, if you stick to youth, it's a simple message -- no use," he said.

The alcohol industry has also learned from the experiences of the tobacco industry, Jernigan added. "They portray themselves as being part of the solution instead of being part of the problem," he said.

Jernigan said that people who speak out against the alcohol industry's marketing practices would find a receptive audience among many policymakers.

"In a period of markedly partisan politics, this is a remarkably bipartisan issue," he said. "I do think there is potential in this political environment for us to move forward in reducing youth exposure to alcohol marketing and mitigating its impact."

Editor's note: Please read JTO's main report on the recent Alcohol Policy Conference, which includes additional data on alcohol marketing presented by David Jernigan and others.