Beer, wine, and liquor manufacturers aggressively seek to maximize sales of their products to blacks, despite public health and safety problems associated with those products. Rather than act to protect the public from the over-promotion of alcohol, government has set few effective constraints on the sales stratagems of alcoholic beverage producers, who advertise their brands to young people, and who routinely promote regular, daily drinking and appeal to the psychological needs of alcohol abusers. Although blacks, overall, consume less alcohol per capita than whites, drinking in the black community results in disproportionately high rates of certain alcohol-related problems, such as cirrhosis of the liver, esophageal cancer, and violent crime and accidents. But the black population is being targeted for increased consumption. Advertising and other marketing practices directed at blacks are examined. The alcohol industry's varied public relations and "public service" activities, which have been implemented ostensibly to promote goodwill in the black community, result in economic dependence that effectively prevents black media and civic organizations from taking energetic actions against alcohol problems. Recommendations are made to help decrease the economic dependence of these organizations on the alcohol industry. (BJV)