Latino Group Targets Alcohol, Tobacco Use

Community activists, researchers and students at a symposium Friday at Cal State Northridge addressed the negative health and social effects that alcohol and tobacco have on Latinos.

The California Latino Leadership United for Healthy Communities, a statewide coalition of researchers, practitioners, community and civic groups, sponsored the two-day event, which ends today, to raise awareness of the problems and seek solutions.

Members of the coalition studied the results of alcohol and tobacco use among Latinos and presented their findings. Included are:

* Alcohol dependence is the leading cause of disability in Los Angeles County among Latinos.

* Smoking among Latino youths from 12 to 17 years old increased 52% between 1993 and 1996.

* Latino children are exposed to as many as 61 alcohol advertisements each day.

* Latino-targeted alcohol ads and a high density of liquor stores and bars are associated with increases in the rate of rape and violence against Latinas.

“There needs to be more statewide attention on substance abuse in the Latino community,” said event organizer Juana Mora, a CSUN health professor and expert on substance abuse in the Latino community. “It’s a big problem, and there’s not enough prevention and intervention.”

About 200 people, mostly CSUN students, attended the first day of the symposium, which featured panels addressing such topics as sponsorship by the alcohol and tobacco industries of community events and youth mobilization to prevent substance abuse.

Tables containing educational information were set up in the Grand Salon Hall, where the event took place.

One colorful poster, sponsored by a campaign to promote alcohol-, tobacco- and violence-free celebrations read: “Cinco de Mayo con Orgullo,” or Cinco de Mayo with Pride. That is, without substance abuse.

But that resolution can be difficult to keep considering Latino communities are bombarded with alcohol advertisements, Mora said. The coalition estimates that the top three domestic brewers spent a combined $26 million in 1996 on Latino advertising nationwide. Foreign brewers, the group says, also aggressively target Latinos.

“You go out into these [northeast Valley] communities and you see a lot of Heineken en Espanol!” said Gerardo Guzman, a program coordinator for the San Fernando-based social services group Pueblo y Salud. “We go into the communities and show people all the liquor ads on every block. We inform the people.”

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Pueblo y Salud was instrumental in lobbying for the passage of legislation that restricts alcohol and tobacco advertising in the cities of Los Angeles and San Fernando. Guzman told the symposium that the organization was successful because it got the community involved.

“We had a Monroe High School student talk to the L.A. City Council,” Guzman said. “He said he started smoking because he saw a cigarette billboard every day right across from where he took the bus. There was no script. It was just the truth, and it had an impact.”

Others making presentations included Rodolfo Acuna, professor of Chicano Studies at CSUN; Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, USC professor of preventive medicine and an investigator with a California State Department of Health Services Latino education network; and Al Rodriguez, manager of a Santa Barbara County alcohol and drug program.

“It was very interesting, I learned a lot,” said CSUN junior Maribel De Loa, who attended the symposium with her Chicano Studies class. “What really stood out for me is how the beer companies target Latinos.”

The symposium resumes today at 9 a.m. Speakers are to include state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles).