Education Is Minorities’ Weapon Against Alcohol, Cigarette Hype

It is half true that cigarettes and alcohol are “legal products,” as one billboard company executive stated in the article, “Cigarette Ads Disappearing in Some Areas” (Aug. 16).

Many users of these drugs almost always start as juveniles, thus ensuring the legalized pushers of the most common killer-drugs of Americans new, paying customers to replace the dying.

The article focused on tobacco and alcohol advertising targeting African-Americans, but it could just as well have applied to the burgeoning Latino community.

But although the local interim executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is to be congratulated for her national group’s recent entry into the booze and cigarette controversy, her observation that “the more pressing problem in Los Angeles’ urban areas is the high number of liquor stores where people can go in and buy alcohol and cigarettes” is not entirely on target.

Countering the well-researched marketing strategies of the alcohol and tobacco industries and their advertisers requires community activists to focus holistically on the four P’s of marketing as well. Promotion, place, product, price strategies and tactics are not separable in the real world.

Unfortunately, many in the minority communities targeted by these industries are ill-prepared to understand and counter the skilled propaganda techniques, not only of the politicians but also of the advertiser/promoter. Hype succeeds because the pusher knows his pushovers. It’s high time the fifth “p”--people--got to know their deceivers and the tricks of their trade.

RAY CHAVIRA

Lancaster

The writer is chairman of the High Desert Alcohol Policy Coalition, a community network aimed at preventing alcohol - related problems.