NORTHERN VIRGINIA Chapter Newsletter: May 2003

Election Results
Congratulations to the 2003-2004 chapter officers, all of whom were elected at the chapter meeting on March 27th and will take office on July 1, 2003.

President & S.O. Rep: Dan Ingram
Vice President: Steven Hill
Secretary/Treasurer: John Pinckney

PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS
MADD has a vehicle donations program that benefits donors at tax time and helps us to provide quality services in Northern Virginia. Call 703-779-7534 for information.

Are Alcohol Ads Aimed at Kids?
As parents, we try our best to expose our children to good influences and positive models. But we can’t be everywhere at once, so it’s disturbing to hear that the alcohol industry places ads where kids see them but we may not.

The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, a public health project at Georgetown University funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is looking at the degree to which youth are exposed to advertising and marketing for alcohol. What the Center has found is troubling:

• Youth ages 12 to 20 saw 45 percent more beer magazine ads and 27 percent more distilled spirit magazine ads than people over 21 in 2001. Youth saw 95 percent more beer magazine ads than people age 35 and over. These ads appeared in magazines seen by millions of children and teens, like Sports Illustrated, Vibe, Spin and Rolling Stone.
• Youth were 6 percent more likely than adults to see magazine ads for fruity “malternative” beverages like Doc Otis Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Ice, Rick’s Spiked Lemonade and Skyy Blue.
• Youth saw 58 percent fewer wine magazine ads, meaning that kids don’t have to be exposed more than adults to magazine ads for beer and liquor.
• Almost a quarter of alcohol ads on television in 2001 were more likely to be seen by youth than adults. That year youth saw two beer and ale ads for every three seen by adults. Youth saw more beer and ale television advertising than they did for gum, fruit juice, chips, sneakers or jeans.
• Youth were 60 times more likely to see commercials for alcoholic beverages in 2001 than they were to see responsibility ads purchased by the alcohol industry. They were 170 times more likely to see an ad promoting alcohol than an industry ad discouraging drunk driving and 93 times more likely to see an alcoholic product ad than one discouraging underage drinking.

The alcohol industry’s voluntary advertising standards aren’t protecting our youth. Alcohol companies spend millions upon millions of dollars placing ads where teens see them. But our families and communities pay the real price as the tragic consequence of underage drinking.

For more information and resources call the chapter office at 703-379-1135, email us at admin@maddnova.org or visit the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at www.camy.org.

New Office Staff
In the past several months, we have had the pleasure of welcoming two new members to the MADD Northern Virginia office staff.

Jennifer Cipolla, our Program Manager, is working primarily with victim and youth issues. She has been very active with several coalitions and has significantly increased our outreach activities.

Noreen Dinndorf, our Administrative Assistant, is in charge of keeping the office functioning and is also working with our Court Monitoring program.

Feel free to stop by our office to meet the staff.

Underage Drinking in the U.S. and Abroad
We often hear that young people in Europe drink more responsibly than do young people in the U.S.

Until recently, data did not exist to easily test this assertion. New research now demonstrates that this is not the case and, in fact, in comparison with young people in the U.S. – a greater percentage of young people from nearly all European countries report drinking in the past 30 days; for a majority of those European countries, a greater percentage of young people report having five or more drinks in a row; and, about half of the European countries have intoxication rates among young people that are higher than intoxication rates in the U.S. and about a quarter had equivalent rates.

For a copy of the four-page DOJ report on this subject, call the chapter office at 703-379-1135.