By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

DR. Thomas Shieh, chairman of the Coalition 21 movement, yesterday called on the attention of the local leaders to a recently signed congressional bill preventing underage drinking and setting the national legal age at 21.
President Bush has signed HR 864, titled Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking, also known as STOP Act.
The law, sponsored by California Rep. Lucille Royball-Allard, a Democrat, seeks to curb access and consumption of alcohol by those under 21, and strengthens national programs aimed at reducing the rate of underage drinking in the nation.
“On behalf of our doctors and nurses on Guam, we express our thanks to the courage of the congressional leaders who championed this critical bill. It reinforces and supports the drinking age of 21. A drinking age of 21 is needed on Guam if we want to truly prevent underage drinking,” Shieh said in a press statement.
Shieh, Guam’s delegate to the American Medical Association, was among the main proponents of the failed Prop A, an initiative that sought to raise the drinking age on Guam from 18 to 21.
STOP Act was based on a 2003 study by the National Institute of Medicine, which found that young people who drink alcohol have less memory retention than those who do not drink.
“The Guam Legislature cannot continue to ignore the evidence from the National Institute of Medicine, the AMA, the U.S. Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control on why a drinking age law of 21 saves lives and saves families,” Shieh said.
“For our government to refuse to acknowledge the evidence, Guam will continue to witness victims such as the recent death of a Guam cyclist who was killed by a 20-year-old sailor. Once again, DUI is just the tip of iceberg when it comes to drinking under the age of 21,” he added.
Shieh again cited brain studies, which say that exposure to alcohol under the age of 21 increases one’s health risk and “endangers the innocent public.”