Programs like “Prevent, Don't Provide” from Anheuser-Busch help the alcohol industry shift attention away from its own practices and onto parents.

Parenting is already a tough job. Widespread availability and aggressive promotion of alcohol makes that job even harder. Yet the alcohol industry consistently shifts the responsibility for underage drinking to parents in a transparent attempt to keep the spotlight off the concrete things it could be doing to reduce the accessibility and appeal of its products to youth.

When it comes to drinking, the alcohol industry's answer to the problem requires very little from those who produce, distribute and sell alcoholic beverages. Bolstered by its own polls in which young people identify parents as the greatest influence on their decisions about drinking, the industry is plugging parents as its preferred solution. Anheuser-Busch brushed the dust off its “Family Talk” materials; Coors is partnering with the Search Institute's “Most Valuable Parent” program; Miller's “Let's Keep Talking” is supposed to help Mom and Dad discuss responsible choices with their children; and the Century Council's “Girl Talk: Choices and Consequences of Underage Drinking” targets mothers of teenage girls.

These programs all emphasize a common tactic—talk. If you are a parent, you are supposed to talk to your child, and possibly to other parents, about underage drinking. Talking to your kids is a good thing, just like designating a driver. But none of these industry Web sites or brochures suggests that parents get involved in community level action to reduce alcohol-related risk for young people in general. There's no information about policy changes —increased alcohol taxes or reduced availability—that can reduce underage drinking. They say nothing about working to limit young people's exposure to alcohol advertising either at home or in the community at large.

In other words, there's nothing that would require the alcohol industry to change the way it produces, distributes or sells its products. Nothing that might reduce its profits that are tied to underage youth who consume 20 percent of all alcohol. That's why the same folks telling parents to talk to their children about drinking are busy marketing the sweet, fizzy alcopops that have quickly become the alcoholic beverage of choice among teen girls.