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House Passes Underage-Drinking Prevention Bill |
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From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News: A bill that's being called the first national legislation to focus exclusively on underage-drinking prevention has been overwhelmingly approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, and now heads to the Senate for consideration. The Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking (STOP) Act, H.R. 864, was passed 373-23 on Nov. 14. "Our nation must no longer be complacent about underage drinking and its alarming consequences," said Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), the lead sponsor of the legislation. "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the number of underage deaths due to excessive alcohol use at 4,554 a year. "Alcohol kills six times more young people than all other illegal drugs combined," added Osborne. "So the federal government, in response, spends 25 times more annually to combat youth drug use ... The bill was supported by groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, the Center for Alcohol Marketing to Youth, and the American Medical Association, as well as alcohol industry groups like the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, and the Beer Institute. The industry supported the key prevention aspects of the bill, but succeeded in getting allies in Congress to delete legislative "findings" from the measure that detailed the harm caused by underage alcohol use. Industry supporters also added language that supported the Prohibition-era, "three-tiered" alcohol distribution system that includes wholesalers as the middleman in most alcohol sales.
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