This past legislative session, Action on Alcohol and Teens (AAT) successfully worked with Minnesota Join Together, Minnesota - MADD, and other organizations to strengthen Minnesota's laws to reduce youth access to alcohol. The first three measures were passed:

• A grant fund to assist communities with alcohol compliance checks was created. The fund was given $150,000 for a two-year period. These funds will be administered through the Department of Public Safety (DPS). DPS and the Minnesota Join Together Coalition will be broadly disseminating information about the grants early this fall. Watch for the information or check AAT's website www.winternet.com/AAT).
• Youth who consume or attempt to purchase alcohol will now receive a mandatory, minimum fine of $100.00.
• There is now a felony charge for adults to provide alcohol to youth when there is death or serious bodily harm.
• Unfortunately, the .08 bill championed by MADD did not pass again this session.

Thank you to all of you who helped this past legislative session!

AAT would like to acknowledge Tom Brockway, whose son Kevin died in January 1998 after leaving a party at which an adult provided alcohol. Tom's testimony helped pass these important measures that will reduce teenage access to alcohol. Tom's courage is truly admirable.

Thanks also to Connie Bernardy, Bud Fitch, Katie Tilly and others for testifying, and much thanks to the legislative authors, Senator Ember Reichgott-Junge and Representative Matt Entenza for their leadership on these important issues!

MINI-GRANTS – Minnesota Join Together

Minnesota Join Together (MJT) recently announced another round of mini-grants. Request for proposals are available through Rachel Jones at 612/427-5310. MJT has given out approximately 40 grants to assist local community groups with projects to reduce youth access to alcohol through social sources and illegal commercial sales. Many communities have used the mini-grants to fund compliance checks and to build capacity for their local community efforts. Applicants from anywhere in Minnesota are eligible to apply for grants ranging between
$500 - $5,000.

The application proposal is available on the MJT website at http://www.miph.org/mjt

SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT CAP DEFEATED

Grassroots efforts are credited for defeating a proposal that would have put a cap on substance abuse treatment funding. These advocacy efforts resulted in the removal from the state omnibus budget bill a provision to severly limit public reimbursement increases for providers until June 31, 2001.

The Minnesota Association of Resources for Recovery and Chemical Health (MARRCH) spearheaded the effort to defeat the House provisions in the Health and Human Services Conference Committe.

Advocacy efforts resulted in defeating most of the House provisions except for funding that was lost for inhalant abuse prevention and treatment. Key results of the defeated proposal include:

• No sunset date of July 1, 2001 for chemcial dependency grant porgram using state funds for prevention activities and case management services for chronic abusers.
• Continued funding for prevention and treatment programs that target pregnant women and women with children.
• Reasonable increases on reimbursement for in-patient and out-patient chemical dependency treatment and opposes any caps that does not allow counties or other providers that need flexibility (no rate cap freeze).

COMPLIANCE CHECK TRAINING

During June and July, the Minnesota Department of Health conducted 8 tobacco and alcohol compliance check training sessions throughout the state, with a total of 230 attendees. The purpose of these trainings was to provide a model of best practices for conducting compliance checks. AAT was one of the sponsors of these trainings.

TRAUMA FOUNDATION

AAT has been selected to be included in a book of case histories about alcohol issues to be published by the Trauma Foundation. The San Francisco-based foundation is spotlighting real- world examples of how community groups from all over the U.S. are working to reduce alcohol-related problems in communities. The book will tell the stories of seven groups and will highlight the lessons they have learned along the way. Check out the Trauma Foundation's website at www.traumafdn.org.

LETTERS TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS

If you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul, we need your help. AAT and partners like MN Join Together, MADD and citizens have worked in both cities to get compliance checks conducted. Results indicate that it is too easy for youth to buy alcohol. However, even with this fact it will take more citizen involvement to continue this effort and institutionalize alcohol compliance checks. We need citizens from these respective cities to write their council members and Mayor to ask them to increase their budgets and staff. These increases would permit the Cities to conduct annual alcohol compliance checks of all licensees. The staff needs are:

• St. Paul: Vice Police and License Inspections & Environmental Protection
• Minneapolis: Police Licensing and Licenses and Consumer Services

Please let your council member know that you support compliance checks as a strategy to reduce youth access to and alcohol use. Tell them that it is an investment that will reduce future alcohol-related problems among youth, adults and the community.

If you do not know who your council member is or their address, in St. Paul call 651/266-8560, or in Minneapolis call 612/673-2200.

ALCOHOL CONSIDERED IN ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN

On July 13th, the House Appropriations committee voted 32 - 23 against an amendment which would have permitted the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to include underage drinking messages in its anti-drug media campaigns. Earlier, the Amendment had also failed to pass in the Senate.

ONDCP staff, including General Barry McCaffrey, agree that alcohol is by far the greatest drug threat to young people in America. Alcohol is not only the drug that's most used by our young people, it's almost always the first drug and is often used along with other substances. Furthermore, underage drinking kills six and a half times as many young people every year as all other drugs combined.

Ironically, but not surprsing, the National Beer Wholesalers Association has lobbied strongly against this effort and has stated that they are the best suited to run an underage-drinking prevention media campaign.

Several state legislatures have passed resolutions supporting the Roybal-Allard/Wolf language that would authorize ONDCP to integrate alcohol prevention messages in the billion-dollar campaign. Efforts to pass this legislation will continue next year!

MEDIA UPDATE

Because of the work of many organizations, media coverage of underage alcohol use was widespread during the legislative session and has increased from previous years. Included in the coverage was a three-part series in the Star Tribune created in partnership with KTCA and Minnesota Public Radio. Since the beginning of 1999, we've counted at least 8 T.V. news stories, 8 radio spots, 34 print stories, and 670 media contacts on youth and alcohol issues.