Still, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's idea that low-alcohol malt beverages should be taken off grocery-store shelves to protect novice drinkers and those too young to be drinking at all is the wrong approach to the problem.
Shurtleff is urging his counterparts throughout the country to adopt stricter controls on colas, lemonade and fruit-flavored drinks containing alcohol that are especially popular with young women. In Utah that would mean selling them only at state-controlled liquor stores.
At the same time, the AG has no such plan for the beer sold in Utah grocery and convenience stores, which has 3.2 percent alcohol, more than many of the malt beverages he wants banished.
Shurtleff's argument is that one-third of teenage girls polled in a 2004 nationwide survey say they drink the sugary low-alcohol drinks, called alcopops. Worse, one in six underage girls has tried them.
They are increasingly advertised in magazines for teenage girls and young women, and the American Medical Association found that underage girls see those ads nearly twice as often as do older women.
We agree with Shurtleff that any imbibing by underage teens is too much. And advertising targeting them shows the shameless greed of distillers like Smirnoff, Jack Daniels and Bacardi. But, if he believes young and underage drinkers need more protection from products developed to appeal to them, why not include beer? Beer ads aimed at boys and young men - replete with underclad women and overdeveloped sports celebrities - are also seductive. Underage boys see 29 percent more beer advertising than men 21 and older.
It seems to us that restricting the sale of beverages with lower alcohol content than beer, but keeping the status quo on beer sales, would be discriminatory. However contemptible it is, advertising that lures young drinkers is legal. But selling alcohol to minors is not.
Shurtleff would better serve the community by cracking down on illegal sales or, to be evenhanded, by calling for the same restrictions on both malt beverages and beer.
