Where are the Crusades to Ban Alcohol, Marijuana & Caffeine – For the Children?

 

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) just introduced a program to discourage underage drinking, aimed specifically at middle schoolers (here). It’s called “Too Soon = Too Dangerous.”  The chart at left, based on data from the government’s Monitoring the Future Survey (MTFS), shows that attention to early substance abuse is timely.

There’s long been a broad crusade to prohibit all tobacco and nicotine products. Local and state governments are banning vaping and e-cigarette flavors (examples here, here and here), and the FDA has rejected thousands of flavored products that were already on the market (resulting in a todal wave of illicit products).

In contrast, 6% of eighth graders say they consume alcohol.  Of course, all alcoholic drinks are flavored. 

Where is the crusade against alcohol, which is inarguably much more dangerous than nicotine?  According to the CDC, “Underage drinking is a significant public health problem in the U.S.  Excessive drinking is responsible for more than 3,900 deaths and 225,000 years of potential life lost among people under age 21 each year.”  The same potential danger exists with marijuana, which is also consumed by eighth graders. 

Like alcohol and marijuana, nicotine is addictive, but no teenagers have died from using it.  Nicotine is more like caffeine, which is also represented in the chart by the 14% of eighth graders who currently consume energy drinks or shots.  Some health professionals (here, here, here, here and here) and federal agencies (here) have expressed concern, and there is at least one study claiming, “Teens who drink high-caffeine energy beverages such as Red Bull or Monster may be more likely to use alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.”  There is even a report of “a 16-year-old [who] tragically lost his life after consuming an energy drink, a soda and a latte — drinks routinely consumed by and often intensively marketed to youths — all within a few hours.”

Where is the crusade to ban energy drinks and shots?  Tobacco harm reduction advocates will be interested to know that Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Edward Markey (D-MA) have agitated about the marketing and advertising of these products, but no one is talking about banning them.

Let me remind you about the stakes here.  While nearly half-a-million American smokers needlessly die each year because they are unable or unwilling to quit nicotine and tobacco, there is a crusade, mostly in the name of protecting children, to ban effective and vastly safer tobacco substitutes.  In contrast, there is no organized movement to ban far more dangerous alcohol and marijuana, nor addictive caffeine, all of which are frequently consumed by American adolescents.    

 

2023 High School Seniors Preferred Alcohol and Marijuana, But Almost Abandoned Cigarettes

 

My readers know that I have followed the results of the annual Monitoring the Future Survey (MTF) for many years, focusing on alcohol, marijuana and tobacco use among high school seniors.  The 2023 MTF results, released in December (here), indicate that past 30-day (i.e., current) use of all products declined from the previous year (as seen in chart at left).    

Despite its illegality, drinking alcohol retained its decades-long top-substance status among seniors at 23%, down significantly from 28% in 2022.  Marijuana was second at 18%, one point higher than the 17% of seniors vaping nicotine in the past 30 days, which was a significant 4 percentage point decline from the year before.  Happily, current smoking remained at the bottom of the chart, at a new low of 2.9%.    

Another fascinating MTF finding (not on my chart) is that 18% of seniors currently consumed flavored alcohol, one point higher than those who vaped nicotine.  Protecting teens from flavors has driven the FDA’s attempts to ban vape flavoring and these products are being prohibited outright in jurisdictions across the country.  Flavored alcohol is far more dangerous for teens, but those products are apparently beyond the FDA’s reach, and no one has yet established a Campaign for Alcohol Free Kids. 

 

FDA Creates, Decries Illegal E-Cigarette Tsunami

 

An article in the LA Times January 2^nd bemoaned the “thousands of new flavored products…pouring into the country from China.”  It claimed, “Nearly all the new products are disposable e-cigarettes, according to sales data gathered from gas stations, convenience stores and other shops. The products generated $3.2 billion in the first 11 months of this [sic] year.”

The response from Brian King, director of the FDA Center for Tobacco Products, was naïve: “Those committing illegal acts don’t advertise their crimes, and those trying to import illegal tobacco products into the United States are no different.  The FDA and our federal partners are using tools, like import alerts, to stop these illegal tobacco products at the border and to deter countless others.” (emphasis added)

Dr. King ignores history.  A contemporary account of the first day of Prohibition in the U.S., January 17, 1920, noted, “Canadian liquor in quantities from one gallon to a truckload is being hidden in the northern woods and distributed by automobile, sled and iceboat, on snowshoes and skis.”

Neither Dr. King nor his FDA colleagues are going to stop the illegal vape tsunami.  When the FDA issued a toothless warning letter last May to the Chinese maker of Esco Bars e-cigarettes, it failed to note that the product’s name is a salute to one of history’s most successful illegal importers – Pablo Escobar. 

My readers will recognize another tobacco prohibitionist in the LA Times article -- Stanford University’s Bonnie Halpern-Felsher.  I’ve criticized her previous research, but here she comes across as a realist: “FDA whacks one product and then the manufacturers get around it and the kids get around it.  It’s too easy to change your product a little bit and just relaunch it.”

Halpern-Felsher wants all vapes banned… for the children, foreseeing a vaping apocalypse: “If we continue down this path that we’re on, we’re just going to have new and continuing generations of young people addicted to nicotine.”

Yes, regardless of what the FDA or anyone else does, some teens and young adults will become addicted to nicotine.  But as shown in the chart below, few will die from nicotine over the next 30 years, as almost none of these vaping youth smoke.