Reducing Underage Drinking A Collective Responsibility (2004) / Chapter Skim
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12. Federal and State Governments
12. Federal and State Governments
Pages 232-249
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From page 232... ...
Two of these roles are to coordinate and monitor the various components, including providing the data and research needed to assess and improve the strategy. The third role is to increase alcohol excise taxes to both reduce consumption and provide funds to support the strategy.
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From page 233... ...
Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Labor, Defense, Treasury, Agriculture, and Interior, as well as the Executive Office of the White House and the Corporation for National Service funded efforts that include underage alcohol use within broader mandates that target alcohol and other drug use. Of the total amount reported ($1.09 billion)
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From page 234... ...
12) , OJJDP funds "retail compliance initiatives, prevention programs, and fostering a juvenile justice system that, among other things, provides appropriate sanctions, treatment and rehabilitative services based on the needs of the individual juvenile." OJJDP's Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws Program is "designed to reduce the availability of alcoholic beverages to minors and prevent the consumption of alcoholic beverage by minors." The funds are distributed through block and discretionary grants.
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From page 235... ...
The coordinating committee also should periodically consult with the range of national nongovernmental organizations -- including National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Students Against Destructive Decisions, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, Century Council, National Beer Wholesalers Association -- who sponsor initiatives aimed at preventing underage drinking to facilitate a coordinated, research-based approach by all key players. Once the recommended nonprofit foundation is established, the foundation should also be regularly consulted.
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From page 236... ...
Thus the mission of the new center would include the provision of technical assistance and training in community assessment, leadership development, policy development, community organizing, strategic use of the news media, and community-based evaluation to support the program of action laid out in this committee's recommendations. Currently the federal government does not report regularly on activities across the various agencies that fund targeted underage drinking activities, and evaluating the effect of those activities, as it does for illegal drugs through an annual report issued by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
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From page 237... ...
Currently, each state and Washington, D.C., receives a block grant under OJJDP's Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws Program for activities related to preventing underage drinking. According to OJJDP staff, these funds are administered by a variety of agencies, including those for health and human services, traffic safety, criminal justice, and law enforcement, ABC agencies and other agencies.
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From page 238... ...
on a biannual basis. MTF, a survey of eighth, tenth, and twelfth-graders, has been conducted annually since 1975 by the University of Michigan, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
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From page 239... ...
The monitoring of specific brands, coupled with information on advertising and marketing by specific producers, would also provide the public and policy makers with information necessary to hold alcohol producers accountable for profits made from persons who are illegally using their product. Monitoring of Advertising and Entertainment Media As discussed in Chapter 7, abundant evidence shows that alcohol advertising and other promotional activities now reach large underage audiences, and it is reasonable to expect more aggressive self-regulatory efforts by the alcohol industry to restrain marketing practices that tend to encourage underage drinking, even in the absence of clear evidence that such
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From page 240... ...
Accordingly, the committee recommends that DHHS be authorized and funded to monitor these media practices and report to Congress and the public. EXCISE TAXES As discussed in Chapter 1, one approach to reducing underage consumption is to reduce the overall level of alcohol consumption in the society.
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From page 241... ...
Overall, alcoholic beverages are far cheaper today than they were in the 1960s and 1970s. Current excise taxes and prices are low not only by historical standards, but also and more importantly by the standard that prices (inclusive of tax)
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From page 242... ...
rates of risky and harmful activity, including reckless driving, violent crime, and unsafe sex. Of course, as discussed in Chapter 1, these are precisely the arguments that support minimum drinking age laws and accompanying restrictions on youthful access to alcohol: the social costs of drinking by youths are unacceptably high.
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From page 243... ...
There is stronger evidence on the effects of excise taxes (reflecting presumed differences in price) on the harms associated with youthful alcohol abuse.
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From page 244... ...
Recommendation 12-7: Congress and state legislatures should raise excise taxes to reduce underage consumption and to raise additional revenues for this purpose. Top priority should be given to raising beer taxes, and excise tax rates for all alcoholic beverages should be indexed to the consumer price index so that they keep pace with inflation without the necessity of further legislative action.
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To ensure that activities are adequately evaluated and that interventions are research based, the committee recommends that a specific standard portion, perhaps 15 percent, of grant funds be set aside for independent evaluations. Currently, the proportion set aside for evaluation varies from program to program.
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From page 246... ...
States and the federal government should study the effect of a range of access-oriented interventions on underage drinking and drinking problems: · dram shop liability laws; · shoulder tap and similar programs; · keg registration laws; · social host liability laws; · conditional use permits; and · sobriety checkpoints. Youth-Oriented Interventions Further research and evaluation is necessary to identify successful approaches for reaching populations generally not included in school-based education approaches and refine assessments of interventions on college campuses.
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From page 247... ...
. The necessary government contribution could be offset by revenue generated by increased federal and state alcohol excise taxes (above)
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From page 248... ...
and substance abuse prevention and treatment will vary, depending on how much is currently spent on those activities and how those resources are used. States currently receive block grant funds and some states receive discretionary funds targeted at enforcing the underage drinking laws through the Department of Justice, but there is wide variability in how those funds are used.
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From page 249... ...
If social costs were reduced by 5 or 10 percent after 10 years, the economically justifiable cost would be significantly higher. While the committee believes that the enormous social costs of underage drinking warrant an investment in the proposed strategy, specific efforts to collect cost data and to quantify the proposed outcome measures should be built into strategy implementation in order to obtain more precise measures of cost-effectiveness.
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