Topeka ? A decade after he retired from leading a statewide organization that battled alcohol abuse, the Rev. Richard Taylor is back with a new campaign against excessive drinking.

Taylor’s latest effort uses a metaphor in hopes of reaching high school and college students, comparing the brain to a stack of three books. The message is simple: The brain develops up, adding each “book” as it becomes more highly advanced, while alcohol works down, subtracting books as drinking continues.

The retired United Methodist minister said he was inspired to act by news reports in February of a 19-year-old University of Maryland student’s death from excessive drinking.

He has written a four-page message to young people, “Lost Brains,” and mailed it to 50 Kansas newspapers, which should receive it later this week. He also hopes to get high schools and colleges to distribute it to their students.

“I just would like everybody to read it,” he said.

Taylor was president Kansans for Life at Its Best for more than two decades before his 1992 retirement, becoming perhaps the state’s best-known lobbyist.

In its efforts to prevent the abuse of alcohol and other drugs, the group lobbied against looser regulation and a 1986 amendment to the Kansas Constitution that allowed liquor by the drink in public places.

Taylor is not alone in his concerns about excessive drinking, particularly on college campuses. In January, a federal task force reported that 1,400 college students a year died in alcohol-related accidents. The group also said drinking by college students contributed to 500,000 injuries and 70,000 cases of sexual assault or date rape.

Last week, a 17-year-old Ogden boy died after reportedly being forced to drink large amounts of alcohol.