[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 32 (Wednesday, March 16, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H1605]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               ALCOHOL AND NCAA ADVERTISING IS A BAD MIX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Madam Speaker, I do know Paul Wolfowitz and I guess I do 
not recognize the Paul Wolfowitz I know in comparison with the recent 
remarks. I hope people will evaluate him on what he has accomplished, 
which I think is rather substantial.
  Madam Speaker, this weekend the NCAA basketball tournament begins. 
The tournament advertising provides millions of dollars to fund the 
NCAA. It is the primary source of funds for the NCAA. In 2003, alcohol 
producers spent $52 million on 4,747 beer commercials on college 
sports. Nearly one-half of the $52 million spent on alcohol advertising 
in 2003 was spent on the basketball tournament. Alcohol is the primary 
product marketed on NCAA sports broadcasts today.
  I think this is a bad idea. Why? Number one, this advertising 
violates the NCAA's own bylaws. The NCAA bylaws, according to their 
handbook, are as follows: ``Advertising policy of the association are 
designed to exclude those advertisements that do not appear to be in 
the best interest of higher education.''
  The leading cause of death on college campuses is alcohol related; 
1,400 college students die each year from alcohol-related injuries. We 
have lost 1,500 in Iraq in 2 years, and we agonize over those deaths. 
We have 1,400 annually that die on college campuses. More than 70,000 
students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault, 500,000 
students are injured under the influence of alcohol each year, and two 
of five college students currently are binge drinkers and sometimes are 
problem drinkers.
  It does not seem to me that it is very logical that we would have the 
major social problem on college campuses be alcohol, and on the other 
hand turn around and use our athletic teams to promote alcohol 
advertising. It seems inconsistent, and it does seem to be in my mind 
at least to violate the bylaws of the NCAA.
  Furthermore, the average young person today starts consuming alcohol 
at age 13, not 23, not 21. Age 13. So this has some tremendous 
implications I would like to discuss a little bit further because even 
though we are concerned about alcohol consumption on college campuses, 
and this is very damaging, I am even more concerned about alcohol 
consumption of teenagers because kids identify with athletes. Kids like 
sports. They see athletes on the television screen and in the stadium, 
and they want to be like the athletes, and there is a subtle connection 
between what they see on the courts and on the field and what they see 
on the commercials, which usually are young people, attractive people 
having a good time involved in alcohol-related activities. Therefore, 
there is a definite lure and a movement to move those kids toward 
consumption of alcohol.
  The younger children are when they start to drink, the more 
alcoholism results. In other words, a young person who starts using 
alcohol at age 15 or earlier is 400 percent more likely to become 
alcohol-dependent than someone who starts consuming alcohol when they 
are the legal drinking age of 21. This causes tremendous devastation of 
these young people.
  Also the younger you are when you start consuming alcohol, the more 
cognitive dysfunction occurs. Hence the second graph I would like to 
point out here. These are images of a teen, of teen brain activity 
performing memory tests. This is a 15-year-old male nondrinker. The 
brain is firing pretty well. This is a 15-year-old male heavy drinker. 
This is a young person not under the influence of alcohol, but someone 
who uses alcohol regularly and is a heavy drinker. You can see the 
differences in cognitive function. You can see the differences, the 
problem-solving ability that would be changed in these cases.
  So our young people are having a difficult time because of alcohol. 
At the present time it is estimated that there are 3 million teenagers 
who are full-blown alcoholics. And those addicted to other kinds of 
drugs would number probably in the hundreds of thousands. It is a huge 
problem, much more weighted toward alcohol consumption.
  Also alcohol kills six times more young people than all illicit drugs 
combined. So methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, we can lump them all 
together, and alcohol kills six times more young people than all of 
those drugs combined. Also, under-age drinking costs the United States 
$53 billion annually, a huge cost.
  So I think that we should really rethink this policy of the NCAA. 
There is no question that under-age drinking is still going to occur 
even if that advertising policy were to change.
  Madam Speaker, I would say in conclusion that alcohol advertising on 
NCAA sports, number one, appears to violate the NCAA's own bylaws. And, 
secondly, such advertising promotes alcohol consumption on the college 
campus and also on the junior high school and on the high school 
campus. This is certainly very negative as far as our country is 
concerned.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in simply urging through a 
resolution that the NCAA cease and desist this practice of alcohol 
advertising on amateur sports, particularly NCAA sports, because it 
does appear to be in violation of their own bylaws.

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