II

106TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION S. 1390

To help parents and families reduce drug abuse and drug addiction among

adolescents, and for other purposes.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

JULY 19, 1999

Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. DEWINE, and Mr. COVERDELL) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred

to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To help parents and families reduce drug abuse and drug

addiction among adolescents, and for other purposes.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Drug-Free Families

5 Act of 1999’’.

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

7 Congress makes the following findings:

8 (1) The National Institute on Drug Abuse esti9 mates that in 1962, less than 1 percent of the na10 tion’s adolescents had ever tried an illicit drug. By
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1 1979, drug use among young people had escalated to

2 the highest levels in history: 34 percent of adoles3 cents (ages 12–17), 65 percent of high school sen4 iors (age 18), and 70 percent of young adults (ages

5 18–25) had used an illicit drug in their lifetime.

6 (2) Drug use among young people was not con7 fined to initial trials. By 1979, 16 percent of adoles8 cents, 39 percent of high school seniors, and 38 per9 cent of young adults had used an illicit drug in the

10 past month. Moreover, 1 in 9 high school seniors

11 used marijuana daily.

12 (3) In 1979, the year the largest number of

13 seniors used marijuana, their belief that marijuana

14 could hurt them was at its lowest (35 percent) since

15 surveys have tracked these measures.

16 (4) Three forces appeared to be driving this es17 calation in drug use among children and young

18 adults. Between 1972 and 1978, a nationwide polit19 ical campaign conducted by drug legalization advo20 cates persuaded 11 State legislatures to ‘‘decrimi21 nalize’’ marijuana. (Many of those States have sub22 sequently ‘‘recriminalized’’ the drug.) Such legisla23 tive action reinforced advocates’ assertion that mari24 juana was ‘‘relatively harmless.’’
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1 (5) The decriminalization effort gave rise to the

2 emergence of ‘‘head shops’’ (shops for ‘‘heads,’’ or

3 drug users—‘‘coke heads,’’ ‘‘pot heads,’’ ‘‘acid

4 heads,’’ etc.) which sold drug paraphernalia—an

5 array of toys, implements, and instructional pam6 phlets and booklets to enhance the use of illicit

7 drugs. Some 30,000 such shops were estimated to be

8 doing business throughout the nation by 1978.

9 (6) In the absence of Federal funding for drug

10 education then, most of the drug education materials

11 that were available proclaimed that few illicit drugs

12 were addictive and most were ‘‘less harmful’’ than

13 alcohol and tobacco and therefore taught young peo14 ple how to use marijuana, cocaine, and other illicit

15 drugs ‘‘responsibly’’.

16 (7) Between 1977 and 1980, 3 national parent

17 drug-prevention organizations—National Families in

18 Action, PRIDE, and the National Federation of

19 Parents for Drug-Free Youth (now called the Na20 tional Family Partnership)—emerged to help con21 cerned parents form some 4,000 local parent preven22 tion groups across the nation to reverse all of these

23 trends in order to prevent children from using

24 drugs. Their work created what has come to be

25 known as the parent drug-prevention movement, or
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1 more simply, the parent movement. This movement

2 set 3 goals: to prevent the use of any illegal drug,

3 to persuade those who had started using drugs to

4 stop, and to obtain treatment for those who had be5 come addicted so that they could return to drug-free

6 lives.

7 (8) The parent movement pursued a number of

8 objectives to achieve these goals. First, it helped par9 ents educate themselves about the harmful effects of

10 drugs, teach that information to their children, com11 municate that they expected their children not to use

12 drugs, and establish consequences if children failed

13 to meet that expectation. Second, it helped parents

14 form groups with other parents to set common age15 appropriate social and behavioral guidelines to pro16 tect their children from exposure to drugs. Third, it

17 encouraged parents to insist that their communities

18 reinforce parents’ commitment to protect children

19 from drug use.

20 (9) The parent movement stopped further ef21 forts to decriminalize marijuana, both in the States

22 and at the Federal level.

23 (10) The parent movement worked for laws to

24 ban the sale of drug paraphernalia. If drugs were il25 legal, it made no sense to condone the sale of toys
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1 and implements to enhance the use of illegal drugs,

2 particularly when those products targeted children.

3 As town, cities, counties, and States passed anti-par4 aphernalia laws, drug legalization organizations chal5 lenged their Constitutionality in Federal courts until

6 the early 1980’s, when the United States Supreme

7 Court upheld Nebraska’s law and established the

8 right of communities to ban the sale of drug para9 phernalia.

10 (11) The parent movement insisted that drug11 education materials convey a strong no-use message

12 in compliance with both the law and with medical

13 and scientific information that demonstrates that

14 drugs are harmful, particularly to young people.

15 (12) The parent movement encouraged others

16 in society to join the drug prevention effort and

17 many did, from First Lady Nancy Reagan to the en18 tertainment industry, the business community, the

19 media, the medical community, the educational com20 munity, the criminal justice community, the faith

21 community, and local, State, and national political

22 leaders.

23 (13) The parent movement helped to cause

24 drug use among young people to peak in 1979. As

25 its efforts continued throughout the next decade,
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1 and as others joined parents to expand the drug-pre2 vention movement, between 1979 and 1992 these

3 collaborative prevention efforts contributed to reduc4 ing monthly illicit drug use by two-thirds among

5 adolescents and young adults and reduced daily

6 marijuana use among high-school seniors from 10.7

7 percent to 1.9 percent. Concurrently, both the par8 ent movement and the larger prevention movement

9 that evolved throughout the 1980’s, working to10 gether, increased high school seniors’ belief that

11 marijuana could hurt them, from 35 percent in 1979

12 to 79 percent in 1991.

13 (14) Unfortunately, as drug use declined, most

14 of the 4,000 volunteer parents groups that contrib15 uted to the reduction in drug use disbanded, having

16 accomplished the job they set out to do. But the ab17 sence of active parent groups left a vacuum that was

18 soon filled by a revitalized drug-legalization move19 ment. Proponents began advocating for the legaliza20 tion of marijuana for medicine, the legalization of all

21 Schedule I drugs for medicine, the legalization of

22 hemp for medicinal, industrial and recreational use,

23 and a variety of other proposals, all designed to ulti24 mately attack, weaken, and eventually repeal the na25 tion’s drug laws.
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1 (15) Furthermore, legalization proponents are

2 also beginning to advocate for treatment that main3 tains addicts on the drugs to which they are ad4 dicted (heroin maintenance for heroin addicts, con5 trolled drinking for alcoholics, etc.), for teaching

6 school children to use drugs ‘‘responsibly,’’ and for

7 other measures similar to those that produced the

8 drug epidemic among young people in the 1970’s.

9 (16) During the 1990’s, the message embodied

10 in all of this activity has once again driven down

11 young people’s belief that drugs can hurt them. As

12 a result, the reductions in drug use that occurred

13 over 13 years reversed in 1992, and adolescent drug

14 use has more than doubled.

15 (17) Today’s parents are almost universally in

16 the workplace and do not have time to volunteer.

17 Many families are headed by single parents. In some

18 families no parents are available, and grandparents,

19 aunts, uncles, or foster parents are raising the fam20 ily’s children.

21 (18) Recognizing that these challenges make it

22 much more difficult to reach parents today, several

23 national parent and family drug-prevention organi24 zations have formed the Parent Collaboration to ad25 dress these issues in order to build a new parent and
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1 family movement to prevent drug use among chil2 dren.

3 (19) Motivating parents and parent groups to

4 coordinate with local community anti-drug coalitions

5 is a key goal of the Parent Collaboration, as well as

6 coordinating parent and family drug-prevention ef7 forts with Federal, State, and local governmental

8 and private agencies and political, business, medical

9 and scientific, educational, criminal justice, religious,

10 and media and entertainment industry leaders.

11 SEC. 3. PURPOSES.

12 The purposes of this Act are to—

13 (1) build a movement to help parents and fami14 lies prevent drug use among their children and ado15 lescents;

16 (2) help parents and families reduce drug abuse

17 and drug addiction among adolescents who are al18 ready using drugs, and return them to drug-free

19 lives;

20 (3) increase young people’s perception that

21 drugs are harmful to their health, well-being, and

22 ability to function successfully in life;

23 (4) help parents and families educate society

24 that the best way to protect children from drug use
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1 and all of its related problems is to convey a clear,

2 consistent, no-use message;

3 (5) strengthen coordination, cooperation, and

4 collaboration between parents and families and all

5 others who are interested in protecting children from

6 drug use and all of its related problems;

7 (6) help parents strengthen their families,

8 neighborhoods, and school communities to reduce

9 risk factors and increase protective factors to ensure

10 the healthy growth of children; and

11 (7) provide resources in the fiscal year 2000

12 Federal drug control budget for a grant to the Par13 ent Collaboration to conduct a national campaign to

14 mobilize today’s parents and families through the

15 provision of information, training, technical assist16 ance, and other services to help parents and families

17 prevent drug use among their children and to build

18 a new parent and family drug-prevention movement.

19 SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

20 In this Act:

21 (1) ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS.—The term ‘‘ad22 ministrative costs’’ means those costs that the as23 signed Federal agency will incur to administer the

24 grant to the Parent Collaboration.
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1 (2) ADMINISTRATOR.—The term ‘‘Adminis2 trator’’ means the Administrator of the Drug En3 forcement Administration.

4 (3) NO-USE MESSAGE.—The term ‘‘no-use mes5 sage’’ means no use of any illegal drug and no illegal

6 use of any legal drug or substance that is sometimes

7 used illegally, such as prescription drugs, inhalants,

8 and alcohol and tobacco for children and adolescents

9 under the legal purchase age.

10 (4) PARENT COLLABORATION.—The term ‘‘Par11 ent Collaboration’’ means the legal entity, which is

12 exempt from income taxation under section

13 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, es14 tablished by National Families in Action, National

15 Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance

16 Abuse, African American Parents for Drug Preven17 tion, National Association for Native American Chil18 dren of Alcoholics, and the National Hispano/Latino

19 Community Prevention Network and other groups,

20 that—

21 (A) have a primary mission of helping par22 ents prevent drug use, drug abuse, and drug

23 addiction among their children, their families,

24 and their communities;
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1 (B) have carried out this mission for a

2 minimum of 5 consecutive years; and

3 (C) base their drug-prevention missions on

4 the foundation of a strong, no-use message in

5 compliance with international, Federal, State,

6 and local treaties and laws that prohibit the

7 possession, production, cultivation, distribution,

8 sale, and trafficking in illegal drugs;

9 in order to build a new parent and family movement

10 to prevent drug use among children and adolescents.

11 SEC. 5. ESTABLISHMENT OF DRUG-FREE FAMILIES SUP12 PORT PROGRAM.

13 (a) IN GENERAL.—The Administrator shall make a

14 grant to the Parents Collaboration to conduct a national

15 campaign to build a new parent and family movement to

16 help parents and families prevent drug abuse among their

17 children.

18 (b) TERMINATION.—The period of the grant under

19 this section shall be 5 years.

20 SEC. 6. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

21 (a) IN GENERAL.—There is authorized to be appro22 priated to carry out this Act, $5,000,000 for each of fiscal

23 years 2000 through 2004 for a grant to the Parent Col24 laboration to conduct the national campaign to mobilize

25 parents and families.
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1 (b) ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS.—Not more than 5 per2 cent of the total amount made available under subsection

3 (a) in each fiscal year may be used to pay administrative

4 costs of the Parent Collaboration.

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