[Congressional Bills 104th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3334 Introduced in House (IH)]







104th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 3334

  To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require broadcasters to 
   participate in drug and substance abuse information and education 
         efforts as a part of their public service obligations.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 25, 1996

    Mr. Mica (for himself, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Souder, and Mr. Zeliff) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
                                Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require broadcasters to 
   participate in drug and substance abuse information and education 
         efforts as a part of their public service obligations.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds that--
            (1) television broadcasters are required to serve the 
        public interest, convenience, and necessity because their 
        medium of communication, the electronic spectrum, is a scarce 
        public resource;
            (2) television has a great impact on American society, 
        often more than family life, school, or religious institutions;
            (3) current drug abuse prevention and education efforts 
        have failed to curb the demand for destructive and ruinous 
        illicit drugs because we are not taking full advantage of our 
        most effective medium, television;
            (4) there are approximately 7,000 drug abuse related 
        deaths, and 400,000 drug-related accidents reported in the 
        United States every year;
            (5) 49 percent of all State prison inmates reported that 
        their crimes were committed while under the influence of 
        illicit drugs or alcohol, or both;
            (6) intravenous drug use is the second leading cause of 
        existing HIV infection cases, and the leading direct and 
        indirect cause of new HIV cases;
            (7) 64 percent of all child abuse cases involve illicit 
        drug use;
            (8) 20 percent of all newborn children in the United States 
        have been exposed to illicit drugs;
            (9) the Federal Government spends over $13,000,000,000 per 
        year on drug-related domestic law enforcement, international 
        border control, drug treatment programs, and demand reduction 
        efforts;
            (10) $50,000,000,000 worth of illicit drugs are sold in the 
        United States each year;
            (11) in 1991, students in grades 6 through 12 spent 
        $276,000,000 on cocaine, $343,000,000 on marijuana, and 
        $32,000,000 on other illicit substances;
            (12) it is cheaper and more effective to prevent people 
        from using drugs in the first place, or to stop early 
        experimentation before drug use progresses to dependency, than 
        it is to treat an addict or incarcerate drug users;
            (13) reducing the future demand for drugs is widely 
        acknowledged as the key to solving our Nation's drug crisis; 
        and
            (14) therefore, the Federal Government, acting on behalf of 
        the people, and in the interest of national security, has a 
        right to require broadcasters to dedicate a portion of their 
        commercial airtime to addressing this matter of urgent national 
        concern.

SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1934.

    Section 311 of the Communications Act of 1934 is amended by adding 
at the end the following new subsection:
    ``(e)(1) As part of its obligations to ensure that broadcast 
licenses are issued consistent with the public interest, convenience, 
and necessity, the Commission shall, in its review of any application 
for renewal of a commercial or noncommercial television broadcast 
license, consider the extent to which the licensee has participated in 
efforts to educate and inform the public as to the dangers of drug and 
substance abuse and appropriate methods for obtaining treatment. The 
Commission shall not find that a renewal of such a license is 
consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity unless 
the applicant demonstrates that the station has broadcast public 
service announcements concerning drug and substance abuse and treatment 
during each hour of its broadcasting day, and that the duration of such 
announcements is equal to not less than 5 percent of the duration of 
the commercial advertisements broadcast by that station during that 
hour.
    ``(2) The Commission shall, in each annual report submitted under 
section 4(k) after the date of enactment of this subsection, include an 
analysis of broadcasters' progress in meeting the requirements of this 
subsection. Such report shall include statistics concerning the 
proportion of broadcast time devoted to public service announcements 
generally, and to meeting the requirements of this subsection.''.
                                 <all>