Alcohol in America Taking Action to Prevent Abuse (1985) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4. The Price and Availability of Alcohol
4. The Price and Availability of Alcohol
Pages 45-61
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 45... ...
Federal taxes on beer and wine have not changed since 1951, when they were set at 16 cents on a six-pack of beer and from 3 to 67 cents on a 750-milliliter bottle of wine. Federal taxes on distilled liquors did not change from 1951 until 1984, when they rose from $~.68 on a fifth of 80 proof liquor to $2.00.
|
From page 46... ...
Since 1950, the per capita consumption of alcohol has risen over 30 percent. One cannot assume that all of this increased consumption came about because alcoholic beverages were getting cheaper.
|
From page 47... ...
Sales Throughout American history commerce in alcoholic beverages has been closely regulated and heavily taxed by federal and state governments. The first internal revenue law enacted by Congress under the Constitution was a liquor excise tax.
|
From page 48... ...
The Department of Defense controls alcohol sales in clubs and post exchanges throughout the military. Eight million people are eligible to buy alcohol at these outlets, making this jurisdiction larger than that of many states.
|
From page 49... ...
It would be an important step forward to dissociate these efforts from the distorted image of Prohibition that now prevails. Alcohol Prices, Highway Fatalities, and Cirrhosis Death Rates A fundamental law of economics holds that as the price of something goes up, people will generally buy less of it.
|
From page 50... ...
A number of factors have contributed to this increased consumption, including lower relative prices, more liberal attitudes toward drinking, and higher personal incomes. Source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
|
From page 51... ...
He found not only a direct link between these price increases and consumption but also a connection between these price increases and two of the most serious consequences of alcohol usecirrhosis of the liver and highway fatalities. Whenever a state increased its liquor tax, Cook compared the change in that state's per capita consumption of alcohol with the changes in per capita consumption for all other states
|
From page 52... ...
Cook found that states with increased liquor taxes tended to have decreased cirrhosis mortality, a statistical result that could happen by chance just one time in fourteen. He concluded, "There is considerable statistical evidence that a liquor tax increase causes an immediate anc!
|
From page 53... ...
on alcohol abuse found the evidence sufficiently strong to conclude: "Alcohol consumption and the problems caused by it respond to the price of alcoholic beverages, and we infer that the large reductions in the real cost of alcohol to consumers in recent years are likely to have exacerbated drinking problems.... Therefore we see good grounds for incorporating an interest in the prevention of alcohol problems into the setting of tax rates on alcohol." Options for Increasing Alcohol Taxes If the federal government decided to raise taxes on alcohol, it could do so in many different ways.
|
From page 54... ...
Similarly, if the federal government returned its taxes to the 1951 level In real terms and people spent no more money on alcohol than they do now, federal revenues from alcohol taxes would rise to $15 billion. These hypothetical tax increases are Oven only as examples, not as concrete proposals.
|
From page 55... ...
proxy measure of alcoholism. Thus a drop in cirrhosis death rates with an increase in the price of alcohol, which is the correlation Cook demonstrated, is evidence that very heavy drinkers are changing their consumption in response to price.
|
From page 56... ...
One last question to be considered is how much more heavily higher alcohol taxes fall on poor families than on wealthier ones. in principle, excise taxes on alcohol are regressive in that they equal a lower percentage of a household's income as that income goes up.
|
From page 57... ...
They control the number, location, and kinds of retail outlets. And they control the operation of these outlets by specifying legal hours of sale, setting minimum or maximum purchases per customer, requiring that food be served with drinks, prohibiting sales to drunk customers, requiring that operators maintain orderly premises, and so on.
|
From page 58... ...
For instance, do sales of alcoholic beverages in groceries or drugstores increase the amount consumed? Do minimarts attached to gas stations lead to more drunk driving?
|
From page 59... ...
For instance, higher taxes at the federal or state level may affect the net receipts of the alcoholic beverage industry and impinge on the profit margins or business practices of brewers, vintners, distillers, and the thousands of restaurants, taverns, liquor stores, and other out
|
From page 60... ...
New York State requires that half of the money collected from drunk driving fines be returned to the county where the arrest was made for education and prevention programs. Other states require drunk drivers to pay for their own treatment programs.
|
From page 61... ...
They do not want funds to be dedicated in the actual excise tax act. They want the funds raised first." If revenues are not earmarked, there is always the possibility that other demands possibly even other health care needswill siphon them off from programs to prevent alcohol problems.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.