Today, Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-40) celebrated the House of Representatives’ vote to reauthorize her Sober Truth on Preventing (STOP) Underage Drinking Act as part of the 21st Century Cures Act.  The original STOP Act, a law to address the epidemic problem of underage drinking in America, passed Congress unanimously in 2006.  The law was based on recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, and represented an unprecedented collaboration between that advocacy community and all segments of the alcohol beverage industry.  Authorization for the law expired in 2010, though the government has continued to fund the bill’s programs in subsequent years.  The reauthorization of the STOP Act ensures that this funding will remain in place for five more years.

“I am very proud of the STOP Act’s role in strengthening federal, family, and community efforts to address underage drinking over the past decade,” said Congresswoman Roybal-Allard.  “While STOP has helped our nation make a lot of progress in reducing underage alcohol consumption, we still have much more to do to defeat this widespread public health and safety problem.  I am grateful to my Energy and Commerce colleagues for including the STOP Act reauthorization in the Cures Act, so that we will be able to keep applying STOP’s crucial programs to the crisis of underage drinking.”

The reauthorized act includes the STOP Act Grant Program, which provides community coalitions with the funds to strengthen collaboration and coordination in their communities in order to prevent and reduce alcohol use among youth and young adults.  Another important element of the act is the federal Interagency Coordinating Committee, which brings together high-level leadership from 15 federal agencies to coordinate federal efforts to prevent and reduce underage drinking, and to send Congress an annual report summarizing all federal agency activities related to this serious issue.  The act also finances an Ad Council national media campaign directed at parents, and crucial research on the health effects of underage drinking.

The STOP Act has played a substantial role in reducing underage drinking.  According to a 2015 Monitoring the Future study, lifetime alcohol use by 8th, 10th, and 12th graders is at its lowest level in the study’s history.  Binge drinking among 12th graders has fallen to 17.2%, down from a peak of 31.5% in 1998.  Despite this progress, youth alcohol consumption remains a widespread and persistent health problem: alcohol still ranks as the number one drug of choice for young people, and 74.9% of 10th graders and 53.6% of 8th graders say it is easy to obtain alcohol.

###