I
104TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 3474
To require health warnings to be included in alcoholic beverage
advertisements, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MAY 16, 1996
Mr. 
KENNEDY
of 
Massachusetts 
(for 
himself, 
Mr. 
HINCHEY, 
Mr.
FALEOMAVAEGA, and Mr. FATTAH) introduced the following bill; which
was referred to the Committee on Commerce
A BILL
To require health warnings to be included in alcoholic
beverage advertisements, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Sensible Advertising
and Family Education Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Alcohol is by far the drug most widely used
and abused by young people in the United States
today, even though it is illegal for youths under the
age of 21 to purchase alcohol in all 50 of the States
and the District of Columbia.
(2) According to the National Institute on Alco-
hol Abuse and Alcoholism, an estimated 18,000,000
persons in the United States who are 18 or older
currently experience problems as a result of alcohol
use. An estimated 4,500,000 young people are de-
pendent on alcohol or are problem drinkers.
(3) According to the 1995 National Institute on
Drug Abuse survey of high school students and
young adults (entitled ‘‘Monitoring the Future’’), 80
percent of high school seniors, 71 percent of tenth
graders, and 56 percent of eighth graders had used
alcohol at least once. Twenty-eight percent of high
school seniors, 24 percent of tenth graders, and 15
percent of eighth graders had experienced a ‘‘binge’’
of 5 or more drinks in a row within the past 2
weeks. Among college students, 88 percent reported
having used alcohol and 40 percent reported occa-
sions of binge drinking, including 31 percent of the
females and 52 percent of the males.
(4) The average age at which young people
begin drinking is 13. By age 13, approximately 30
percent of boys and 22 percent of girls classify
themselves as drinkers. According to the 1995
‘‘Monitoring the Future’’ survey, 14 percent of high
school seniors reported having been drunk by eighth
grade, 30 percent by ninth grade, 43 percent by
tenth grade, and 60 percent by twelfth grade. Stud-
ies demonstrate that the use of alcohol before the
age of 15 appears to be one of the predictors of later
heavy alcohol and other drug use.
(5) According to a national survey on youth and
alcohol (Inspector General of the Department of
Health and Human Services, 1991), the average
binge drinker is a 16 year-old male in the tenth
grade who was 12 years old when he took his first
drink.
(6) Young people are not well informed about
the hazards of alcohol use. More than one quarter
of high school seniors do not view taking one or two
drinks nearly every day as entailing great risk. Ap-
proximately 45 percent of eighth graders, 47 percent
of tenth graders, and 53 percent of twelfth graders
do not perceive having 5 or more drinks once or
twice a weekend as entailing a great risk (1995
‘‘Monitoring the Future’’ survey). More than 2.6
million students do not know a person can die from
an overdose of alcohol. A projected 259,000 students
think that wine coolers or beer cannot get a person
drunk, make a person sick, or do as much harm as
other alcoholic beverages (Inspector General of the
Department of Health and Human Services, 1991).
(7) According to Healthy People 2000, the Na-
tional Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Ob-
jectives—
(A) nearly one-half of all deaths from
motor vehicle crashes are alcohol-related;
(B) alcohol is implicated in nearly one-half
of all fatal intentional injuries such as suicides
and homicides; and
(C) victims are intoxicated in approxi-
mately one-third of all homicides, drownings,
and boating deaths.
(8) An estimated 25 percent of all hospitalized
persons have alcohol-related problems.
(9) Alcohol in combination with other drugs is
the leading cause of emergency room drug abuse epi-
sodes.
(10) In 1995, chronic liver disease, including
cirrhosis, was the 11th leading cause of death in the
United States. Of 41,000 deaths attributed to liver
disease in the United States, 46 percent diagnosti-
cally were associated with alcohol. Heavy alcohol use
is considered the most important risk factor for
chronic liver disease. Even among liver disease
deaths not coded as alcohol-related, approximately
50 percent are thought to be due to alcohol use.
(11) Between 5 and 24 percent of hypertension
cases are associated with alcohol. Many cases diag-
nosed as essential hypertension (high blood pressure
having no known causes) may actually have chronic
alcohol ingestion as their cause.
(12) Alcohol abuse is strongly associated with
increased risk of cancer, especially cancer of the
liver, esophagus, nasopharynx, and larynx. Alcohol is
also associated with dietary deficiency that may in-
crease cancer risk.
(13) Treatment costs for fetal alcohol syndrome
(referred to in this paragraph as ‘‘FAS’’) and other
alcohol-related birth defects in the United States are
estimated at nearly a third of a billion dollars. FAS
is one of the top 3 known causes of birth defects
with accompanying mental retardation and the only
known preventable cause among the top three.
Among children born to women who drink heavily,
the incidence of FAS may be as high as 25 per
1,000 live births. Among children born to other
women, the FAS incidence is between 1 to 3 infants
with the syndrome per 1,000 live births. The inci-