On November 14, the House approved, 373-23, the Sober Truth on Preventing (STOP) Underage Drinking Act (H.R. 864). Sponsored by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), the bill would authorize $1 million for FY2007-2010 to establish an interagency coordinating committee to guide federal policy and program development on underage drinking; require the secretary of Health and Human Services to issue an annual report card to rate the performance of each state in enacting and enforcing laws to prevent or reduce underage drinking; authorize $5 million for FY2007-2010 for grants to reduce the rate of underage alcohol use and binge drinking at institutions of higher education; and authorize $6 million for FY2007-2010 to research and compile data on underage drinking, including successful treatment programs for youth. The bill also would require the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy to award grants to design, test, evaluate, and disseminate strategies to maximize the effectiveness of community-wide approaches to preventing and reducing underage drinking.
“Prior to being elected to public office, I worked for a nonprofit agency which focused on alcohol abuse,” said Rep. Roybal-Allard. “At that agency, I witnessed firsthand the many devastating consequences of irresponsible drinking. That experience is what motivated me to find ways to address underage drinking. Initially, my colleagues and I commissioned a landmark study by the Institute of Medicine [IOM] to determine the extent of the problem in our country. The IOM study was published in 2003, and its findings were more than alarming. The study found, for example, that in the United States, in any given month, nearly 11 million of our youth between the ages of 12 and 20 drink alcohol. This number includes nearly one in five 8th graders, one in three 10th graders and half of all 12th graders. It also includes the over 5,000 youth in our nation under the age of 16, who will take their first drink by the end of today…Our nation must no longer be complacent about underage drinking and its alarming consequences. We must bring this national public health crisis out of the shadow and into the bright light of a national priority.”
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) said, “The greatest natural resource in this country is not the Spotted Owl, it is not the Grand Canyon, it is not the environment, it is our children, and this bill is a preventive bill. I spent all my life in the criminal justice system before I came to Congress, 22 years on the criminal court in Houston, Texas. I saw about 25,000 people work their way to the courthouse…I will relate one of those to you. A young lady by the name of Lisa, graduating from one of our local high schools, was, as was said earlier, just a regular person, not a troubled child…She and her best friend drove to a nearby town, had something to eat to celebrate, and then they decided they needed something to drink, because that was the thing to do, even though both of them were 18-year-olds, under the age to drink…They were driving home in Lisa’s mother’s car. Having too much to drink, she started weaving on one of our farm-to-market roads, crashed in a ditch and killed her best friend in the car, her very best friend, her next-door neighbor. Because of that crime, involuntary manslaughter, drinking and driving and killing somebody under Texas law, it was mandatory that she go to the penitentiary for a period of time…Rather than wait to be reactionary, to punish somebody for committing that crime, we need to educate. We need to make sure that young people understand it is not socially acceptable or legal to drink under the age of 21.”
