In our 'studies you don't need to read' category is this bit of economic insight from the February edition of Addiction; the more alcoholic beverages cost, the less likely people are to drink. And when they do drink, they drink less.
After analyzing 112 studies spanning nearly four decades, researchers documented a concrete association between the amount of alcohol people drink and its cost.
Yes, it was unclear before that we should make alcohol something only rich people can have, thus widening the social and cultural gap before have's and have not's even further.
The consistency of the association between cost and consumption indicates that using taxes to raise prices on alcohol could be among the most effective deterrents to drinking that researchers have discovered, beating things like law enforcement, media campaigns or school programs, said Alexander C. Wagenaar, Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology and health policy research at the University of Florida College of Medicine, and the senior author of the study.
Why does this need to be done? Well, a journal like Addiction probably has researchers who blame the alcohol for alcohol addiction, much like some study out there will find a way to blame a spoon for making Rosie O'Donnell fat.
The answer is what you might expect; raise taxes. Which will benefit government, some say, but making alcohol more expensive makes it more likely to lead to crime and, if alcohol is so bad for you, it seems foolish to place more government services in a dependent state on a product making its users less likely to work.
To obtain their findings, the researchers scoured through decades of studies examining links between price and alcohol use. The studies were all reported in English, but not limited to any single country. The data resulting from these reports were compiled and analyzed to glean more precise answers than can be obtained from just one study, Wagenaar noted.
In a commentary in the same issue of Addiction, Frank Chaloupka, PhD, Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, describes the research as a "true tour de force," and adds, "these findings provide a strong rationale for using increases in alcoholic beverage taxes to promote public health by reducing drinking."
Public health is not served by less alcohol, it's served by less alcoholics. Many studies even on this two year old site show the health benefits of alcohol in moderation.
The study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Comments
It is clear that the biggest motivator for many people is money.
Take oil addiction for example. When gas got expensive, people reduced driving, and started biking, walking, taking public transit. Now that gas is cheap again, more people are buying SUV's and driving again.
The same logic applies to nearly any domain of life. If the editorial writer wants smaller government, the way to do it is to reduce the number of laws making certain behaviors illegal, and instead to implement monetary motivators (e.g. taxes). Said taxes don't have to go into "making government bigger" - they can be used, for example, to pay off some of the excessive national debt we currently have.
Alcohol is no different. The editorial argues that making it more expensive will:
1) increase crime; and
2) just "widen the social and cultural gap"
There is little evidence I've seen, anywhere, that higher alcohol costs lead to increased crime rates. But there are plenty of counter examples, like Scandanavia to name one. Making it cost more is very different than making it illegal (the latter which I do not support, because it does increase crime).
And, as for widening the social/cultural gap: why is it that people are in poverty in the first place? Could it be that many of them have problems associated with drinking (and/or drug use) that prevent them from being functional members of society? It just seems silly to say that this will somehow widen the cultural gap. It is all a matter of one's priorities. There are plenty of homeless people that drink a lot more alcohol than I do, despite me having full employment. If the cost was greater, maybe it would just even it out a bit. But I'm sure there would be plenty of poor people continuing to drink.
Morgan Giddings | 01/16/09 | 15:14 PM
Raising prices only works when the spending is fundamentally discretionary. With oil, this occurs when a choice can be made regarding where one drives, but it can't be done when the drive is to work. Similarly, when drinking is discretionary, then one can elect to consume less or not drink at all, however, the same choice isn't necessarily available to the addict.
Therefore raising prices may simple force the addict to rearrange priorities to still allow the drinking to occur at the expense of other aspects of their life. While I suppose there are scenarios that could lead to criminal activites, I don't think this a foregone conclusion. Similarly the cultural gap argument seems to be irrelevant, since only "social drinking" would fall into this category (since presumably there is no cultural gap between alcoholics regardless of how much personal wealth they have).
I think attempting to control these behaviors economically is flawed, when we can observe the same addictive behavior in another form of addiction; gambling. This addiction is, by its very nature, economic and has never been curbed by the simple reality of someone not being able to afford it.
Addiction, regardless of whether it is cigarettes or heroin, does not lend itself to simplistic solutions, especially those based on economics alone. The economic element only works when an individual can choose and an addict will invariably make bad choices and exacerbate the problems.
Gerhard Adam | 01/16/09 | 15:31 PM
Very good points & well put too, Morgan & Adam !!
Sheila Joyce Gibbs (not verified) | 01/16/09 | 21:57 PM
I can honestly see the logic in this! A study proved that most of those in need of alcohol treatment are poor people who started drinking to forget their financial problems. I think this would be a solution to prevent alcoholism!
DD (not verified) | 04/12/09 | 16:51 PM
Meh, the problem with trying to place obstacles in the path of people who won't correct their own behavior is that you simply redirect the bad behavior down other paths. If you make alcohol more expensive than *insert drug of choice here* then that is what they will do instead. People who want to use a substance to alter their feelings will just go find another substance.
As this pretty much invalidates any well reasoned altruistic motivation, then the whole thing is just about money.
As this pretty much invalidates any well reasoned altruistic motivation, then the whole thing is just about money.
Anonymous (not verified) | 02/18/10 | 21:01 PM
And with all the problems society has to face now, I've not seen any less purchases at the liquor stores, if anything, I've seen more, at least here in Western Canada anyways !
I wish it were not so.............as health conflicts are not pleasant at all !
Especially since there's no cures for any of them either !!