To the editor:

Your recent article on the National Academy of Sciences’ underage drinking report should be a call to action to parents to play an active role in their children’s lives and talk with them regularly about making responsible decisions.

The report’s main finding that parents and adults are the key to reducing underage drinking is supported by numerous studies that show parents are the primary influence over a youth’s decision to drink.

The distilled spirits industry joins with all of those in the fight against underage drinking and for decades has provided educational materials to assist parents, educators and role models in discussing alcohol with youths (www.centurycouncil.org).

Raising alcohol taxes, as the report also recommended, is not the answer. The academy’s report, itself, and a recent Federal Trade Commission report support this point, finding that most youth obtain alcohol through noncommercial sources such as friends, parents and other adults.

Increasing taxes on alcohol will only further depress Kansas’ struggling hospitality industry and penalize millions of responsible adult drinkers, for whom taxes already make up more than half the price of a typical bottle of spirits.

Peter H. Cressy,

Washington, D.C.

Editor’s note: Cressy is president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council.