[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 127 (Tuesday, September 16, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H8263]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H8263]]
                      PREVENTING UNDERAGE DRINKING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I spent roughly 40 years working with young 
people, and over those 40 years there was a growing concern about drug 
abuse. Drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, heroin, methamphetamines were 
unheard of in 1960 and became more and more prevalent as those 40 years 
moved forward.
  My observation was the primary drug problem that we had with young 
people really revolved around alcohol. Last week the National Academy 
of Science came out with a report on underage drinking that I think 
underscored this observation. The findings were as follows:
  Number one, underage drinking results in $53 billion of costs to the 
Nation annually; $19 billion of this is for alcohol-related traffic 
accidents; 2,339 15- to 20-year-olds were killed in 2000 by alcohol-
related traffic accidents.
  Number two, availability apparently is no problem. Ninety percent of 
twelfth graders say obtaining alcohol is easy. Fifty percent of seniors 
drink each month, and 25 percent of those drink heavily.
  Third, underage drinkers drink more than adults do. The report 
indicates that underage drinkers consume nearly twice as much alcohol 
on each occasion than adults. In other words, underage drinkers are 
more likely to drink to get drunk than adults.
  Number four, underage drinking is more addictive. Due to 
psychological and physiological immaturity, alcohol dependency 
progresses much more rapidly in young people. Sometimes it progresses 
in a matter of weeks or months, whereas in most adults the disease may 
progress over a period of years.
  It is estimated that there are 3 million teenage alcoholics in our 
country today, and those that are addicted to other drugs, it could be 
a fraction of that 3 million, and yet that gets most of the attention.
  Number five, the average age of the first drink is decreasing. At the 
present time the first age of drink is about 14 on the average. Twenty 
percent of eighth graders use alcohol frequently.
  Six, the side effects of adolescent drinking are devastating. 
Underage drinking leads to violence, suicide, academic failure, date 
rape, unwanted pregnancy, it can impede brain development, and it is a 
gateway to other illegal drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and 
heroin, because all of those drugs usually do not start with the drug 
itself but rather alcohol consumption.
  Number seven, a point that I would like to bring out is why has 
underage drinking become such a huge problem. I would say parental 
factors have been a major issue. Many parents subscribe to the myth, 
which is false, that if a young person is using alcohol then they will 
not use other drugs, when the reverse is absolutely the fact. If you 
start using alcohol early, you are more apt to be addicted to all kinds 
of other drugs as well.
  Oftentimes parents will purchase alcohol for children. And then, of 
course, there is the issue of lack of parental involvement. A recent 
study indicated that parents today spend 40 percent less time with 
their children than they did a generation ago, and of course that leads 
to some problems in the alcohol area.
  Then of course there has been a problem with media influence. Young 
people are often targeted by alcohol commercials, and those of you who 
may watch NCAA football this next Saturday will undoubtedly come across 
a number of beer commercials, and these commercials will not show you 
an overweight 50-year-old or an automobile accident or somebody whose 
wife walked out on him. Rather, they will be young, they will be 
attractive, they will be athletic and they will be having a good time. 
And so NCAA sports, which should be aimed at improving things for young 
people, is, I think, in this case part of the problem. Also, much music 
targeted to young people glamorizes alcohol.

                              {time}  2015

  So some of the solutions provided by this report I think are worth 
noting.
  I think we need to reallocate government resources. Twenty-five times 
more money is spent on preventing illegal drug use than preventing 
illegal drinking by young people, and yet if we can keep people from 
drinking, particularly at an early age, we are going to do a tremendous 
amount to cut down use of other hard drugs, and our money would be much 
better spent in that regard.
  We need to hold alcohol advertisers accountable for targeting young 
people. There is no question that many of their advertisements are 
aimed directly at people, and some of those are underage drinkers. We 
need to hold the recording industry, the motion picture industry and 
the television industry accountable for ratings. Many of these ratings 
are rated G or PG and have heavy alcohol content in them.
  We need to enforce regulations banning the sale of liquor to underage 
drinkers. Many times people who violate these rules just get a slap on 
the wrist. It has been proposed, also, by the NAS study that we raise 
the excise tax on alcohol to promote a campaign to reduce underage 
drinking, much as we have to reduce smoking.
  So all of these things I think are worth considering, and I certainly 
urge the membership to take a hard look at the NAS report.

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