Why Do Small Alcohol Tax/Price Hikes Have Such Large Effects On Drunk Driving Casualties?

We have noted before how alcohol tax (and thus price) hikes have been proven time and again to save lives, whether from traffic deaths, other accidental deaths, violent deaths, as well as deaths from more direct alcohol-related conditions such as alcoholic liver disease.  The question remains, why such relatively small differences in price have such relatively large effects, that can sometimes even be large enough to strain the reader's credulity?

For things like liver cirrhosis, the answer is pretty straightforward:  cirrhosis is chronic and cumulative, but it is also progressive as well.  At any given time, some unknown number of people (and unknown to the people themselves as well) may be just one binge away from near-certain death.  And for them, even a very modest near-term reduction in drinking due to a price hike (which to a very heavy drinker, is not trivial, since they spend so much on alcohol) can very well save their life.

But what about less direct things like drunk driving casualties?  Well, one needs to think like an economist, that is, on the margin.  It is the last drink of any given drinking session that determines one's final BAC of the session, and it is the final BAC that determines how impaired one is in the event of driving home.  And we know that the fatal or serious crash risk rises exponentially with BAC, thus even a modest reduction (say, one fewer drink per session) would dramatically reduce the risk of such casualties, even though the risk still remains significantly elevated compared to not drinking at all before driving.  At on-premise locations like bars, a tax hike is likely to be passed through at a rate greater than one-to-one due to rounding up, so it is very plausible that at least some people will have one fewer drink per session as a result.  Or alternatively, they may drink before going out to save money, but that would make them more likely to plan ahead and not drive there, so they would be even less likely to drive back home as a result. 

Either way, the fairly recent examples of Illinois and Maryland seeing sizeable reductions in traffic deaths after relatively modest alcohol tax hikes in 2009 and 2011, respectively, definitely supports this hypothesis.  And it shows that this classic "tax-price-consumption-fatalities" relationship is still as relevant as ever now in the 21st century, even if it has been attenuated a bit since the 1980s.  And most of the gazillion studies on the matter have found that the effect is larger than that of the meretricious "crown jewel" of the neo-prohibitionist public health fascists and ageist bigots, namely the 21 drinking age, with the supposed lifesaving effect of the latter being most likely spurious, inconsequential, or even perverse in the long run.

In other words, it's really a no-brainer to raise alcohol taxes, yesterday.  Especially with alcohol being so dangerously cheap right now in America.  So what are we waiting for?

America Is Still Drowning In The Bottle

Americans are still drowning in the bottle to this day, and paying a heavy price for it.  While the pandemic and especially the lockdowns were clearly gasoline on the fire, that fire has been burning for a very long time before that.  The ageist abomination that is 21 drinking age, and all of its illiberal ancillary laws, has clearly done NOTHING to stem that tide in the long run.  And it's truly no coincidence that alcohol (of all types, but especially hard liquor) is now the cheapest it has been in many, many decades relative to inflation and (especially) income.  That's largely because alcohol taxes have greatly lagged behind and were thus eroded by inflation in recent decades, with the tax on distilled spirits lagging the very most of all.

To quote the latest CDC report on the matter:

Average annual number of deaths from excessive alcohol use, including partially and fully alcohol-attributable conditions, increased approximately 29% from 137,927 during 2016–2017 to 178,307 during 2020–2021, and age-standardized death rates increased from approximately 38 to 48 per 100,000 population. During this time, deaths from excessive drinking among males increased approximately 27%, from 94,362 per year to 119,606, and among females increased approximately 35%, from 43,565 per year to 58,701.

Thus, as Twenty-One Debunked has long advocated, we need to raise the alcohol taxes across the board, and harmonize them all based on alcohol content.  To raise just the beer tax alone, for example, would result in drinkers simply switching to liquor, similar to how minimum unit pricing in Scotland disproportionately affected strong cider and perversely incentivized switching to liquor.  MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) has long heavily beaten the drum (though not so much recently) for raising the beer tax, but has also largely been strangely silent on the distilled spirits tax.  Perhaps some alleged palm-greasing from both the liquor industry and/or foreign beer industry may be at work here?  Things that (should) make you go, hmmmm.....

We advocate raising all federal alcohol taxes to about $30 per proof-gallon, equal to the inflation-adjusted value for the distilled spirits tax in 1991 (in 2023 dollars), the last time it was raised. That would add anywhere between one and two dollars (depending on alcohol content), to the price of a six-pack of beer, a gallon of wine, or a fifth of liquor, while also incentivizing reduced-alcohol beers and wines.  And while that may not be very much of a difference to a moderate drinker, for heavy drinkers it sure adds up, as it also does for the youngest drinkers as well.  And contrary to what some believe, the price elasticity of demand for alcohol is NOT zero or trivial, and the public health benefits of higher alcohol taxes and prices are well-known and established.

To sweeten the deal, we support a relatively reduced tax rate for the smallest producers, and we also support tax incentives for producers who fortify their beverages with thiamine (vitamin B1) and perhaps other vitamins as well.  And we would also support phasing in alcohol tax hikes a bit more gradually if that is the only way to get them passed.  But raise these taxes, we certainly must.

(And, of course, we also also lower the drinking age to 18 yesterday, full stop.  We are still Twenty-One Debunked, after all.)

It is true that Thomas Jefferson once famously said, "no nation is drunken where wine is cheap".  Granted.  But the second half of that very same quote was, "and none sober when the dearness [expensiveness] of wine substitutes ardent [distilled] spirits as the common beverage.  It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey."  And now in 2024, it would seem that ALL categories of alcoholic beverages are too cheap for America's own good, and a fortiori for ardent (distilled) spirits today.

America Is Still Drowning In The Bottle

Americans are still drowning in the bottle to this day.  While the pandemic and especially the lockdowns were gasoline on the fire, that fire has been burning for a very long time before that.  The ageist abomination that is 21 drinking age, and all of its illiberal ancillary laws, has clearly done NOTHING to stem that tide in the long run.  And it's truly no coincidence that alcohol (of all types, but especially hard liquor) is now the cheapest it has been in many, many decades relative to inflation and (especially) income.  That's largely because alcohol taxes have greatly lagged behind and were thus eroded by inflation in recent decades, with the tax on distilled spirits lagging the most of all.

Thus, as Twenty-One Debunked has long advocated, we need to raise the alcohol taxes across the board, and harmonize them all based on alcohol content.  To raise just the beer tax alone, for example, would result in drinkers simply switching to liquor, similar to how minimum unit pricing in Scotland disproportionately affected strong cider and perversely incentivized switching to liquor.  MADD has long heavily beaten the drum (though not so much recently) for raising the beer tax, but has also largely been strangely silent on the distilled spirits tax.  Perhaps some alleged palm-greasing from both the liquor industry and/or foreign beer industry may be at work here?  Things that (should) make you go, hmmmm.....

We advocate raising all federal alcohol taxes to about $30 per proof-gallon, equal to the inflation-adjusted value for the distilled spirits tax in 1991, the last time it was raised. That would add anywhere between one and two dollars (depending on alcohol content), to the price of a six-pack of beer, a gallon of wine, or a fifth of liquor, while also incentivizing reduced-alcohol beers and wines.  And while that may not be very much of a difference to a moderate drinker, for heavy drinkers it sure adds up, as it also does for the youngest drinkers as well.  And contrary to what some believe, the price elasticity of demand for alcohol is NOT zero or trivial, and the public health benefits of higher alcohol taxes and prices are well-known and established.

To sweeten the deal, we support a relatively reduced tax rate for the smallest producers, and we also support tax incentives for producers who fortify their beverages with thiamine (vitamin B1) and perhaps other vitamins as well.  And we would also support phasing in alcohol tax hikes a bit more gradually if that is the only way to get them passed.  But raise these taxes, we must.

(And, of course, we also also lower the drinking age to 18 yesterday, full stop.  We are still Twenty-One Debunked, after all.)

It is true that Thomas Jefferson once famously said, "no nation is drunken where wine is cheap".  Granted.  But the second half of that very same quote was, "and none sober when the dearness [expensiveness] of wine substitutes ardent [distilled] spirits as the common beverage.  It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey."  And now in 2024, it would seem that ALL categories of alcoholic beverages are too cheap for America's own good, and a fortiori for ardent (distilled) spirits today.

Americans Still Drinking Themselves To Death

With all the news about tobacco, vaping, opioids, and cannabis lately, Twenty-One Debunked had almost forgotten about the very substance that led us to our founding in the first place: alcohol.  And the news about alcohol these days is hardly anything rosy:  Americans are still drinking themselves to death, at an alarming and increasing rate.  And yet, such very bad news (among adults) is strangely banal and often seen as not particularly newsworthy.  As we like to say, it is our country's "pink elephant in the room".

Teen drinking specifically may be at or close to a record low now, as it is in many other countries as well, but the tragic truth is that Americans in general are currently drowning in the bottom of the bottle and paying a heavy price for it.

According to a recent article, there are indeed several proven strategies that can be implemented at federal, state, and local levels to help stem the tide and get a handle on America's drinking problem.  We KNOW how to do it, and have known for decades now.  And while they may not necessarily get at all of the deepest root causes, they are still known to work quite well in the meantime regardless:

• Raising alcohol taxes
• Restricting the number/density of alcohol outlets and/or the hours/days of sale
• Improving access to treatment
• Bolstering coping skills

And while the first two get the most "bang for the buck" in terms of cost-effectiveness, they are unfortunately a relatively tough sell in some places.  Nevertheless, all four of these strategies should be implemented yesterday--if only our "leaders" would have the intestinal fortitude to do so.

Notice also that there was no mention of the 21 drinking age in the article.  And that is probably because after maintaining such ridiculous and ageist laws in all 50 states and DC for at least three decades now, the supposed benefits of such laws are ringing more hollow than ever.  And if anything, it is becoming increasingly crystal clear now that the 21 drinking age is doing more harm than good by merely forcing young adult drinking underground and kicking the proverbial can down the road.

The Most (Cost-)Effective Ways to Reduce Alcohol-Related Harms

It has been three decades since the last state, Wyoming, raised their legal drinking age to 21 in 1988 under federal duress.  And since then, has it really led our culture to a healthier relationship with alcohol?  Hardly.  As Twenty-One Debunked has been noting for years now, the tragic truth is that Americans are drowning at the bottom of the bottle, and paying a heavy price for it.  It is the "pink elephant in the room" that no one wants to talk about, particularly for Americans over 21.  This despite the fact that alcohol continues to literally kill more people than the opioid epidemic, and yet the former has not been declared anywhere near a public health emergency the way the latter has been.  Gee, I wonder why?

And while teen drinking is currently at a record low (though not unique to the USA, so don't be so quick to give credit to the 21 drinking age), adult drinking is anything but.  What is most striking is how ageist (and cowardly) our culture's response has been to this epidemic of excessive drinking, essentially blaming young people for adult drinking problems.

As for what the most effective responses to America's drinking problem, the one that stands out as the lowest-hanging fruit of all in terms of both effectiveness and cost-effectiveness at reducing harm is raising alcohol taxes.  In fact a recent international study of 16 countries by researchers at the World Health Orgainzation (WHO) confirmed what we have basically known all along but for some reason have yet to implement fully despite reams and reams of research evidence supporting it.  Other close contenders in terms of the most "bang for the buck" include restrictions on alcohol advertising/marketing and hours of sale, but higher alcohol taxes/prices emerge as the most cost-effective measure of them all. Somewhat less cost-effective is tougher enforcement of BAC limits for DUI, but it is still highly effective as well.  And the least cost-effective, but still effective (and worth doing) albeit more expensive, measure is screening and brief intervention for alcohol problems by primary-care physicians.

And guess what was not mentioned at all?  You guessed it:  drinking age laws.   And for good reason:  the supposed "mountain" of evidence in favor of the 21 drinking age basically turned out to be a molehill all along, and a very shaky one at that.  But as an avid reader of Twenty-One Debunked, you already knew that, right?  One day we will all look at the pro-21 crowd the same way we do for flat-earthers and such.

So yes, we do need to implement these aformentioned measures, especially raising alcohol taxes.  Currently, in real dollars, alcohol is cheaper than ever in the USA.  Raising and equalizing all federal alcohol taxes to $24 per proof-gallon (i.e. the inflation-adjusted 1991 level for distilled spirits) would be a good idea, though even raising them to $16 per proof-gallon would still yield very large societal benefits as well.  That would not be much of a price hike to a moderate drinker, but to a heavy drinker it certainly would be.

And lowering the drinking age to 18 while implementing better and more honest alcohol education would most likely, at least over time, lead to a culturally healthier relationship with alcohol as well since it would no longer be a fetishized "forbidden fruit" that fosters a "go big or go home" attitude to drinking.  The status quo certainly hasn't helped America's drinking culture one bit.

Let America be America Again, and lower the drinking age to 18.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go ot the bar.  'Nuff said.

You May Not Like It, But Here's the Answer to (At Least Greatly Reducing) College Rape and Sexual Assault

As we had noted in a previous post four years ago, rape and sexual assault is a persistent epidemic in the USA, including (but not limited to) college campuses nationwide.  Lately, the chattering classes have been endlessly wringing their hands about it for years, but little real progress has been made in recent years, and since the Trump administration began we seem to have even regressed a bit in that regard, the #MeToo movement notwithstanding.

Most rapes and sexual assaults, especially those involving college students on or near campus, are committed by people known to the victim, and many if not most of those involve alcohol to one degree or another, whether by the perpetrator, the victim, or both.  We should first and foremost note that the only thing that actually causes rape is the rapists themselves, period.   While alcohol (among other substances) can indeed fuel it and is often used as a weapon to incapacitate victims, rape would simply not happen without rapists, period.  And the onus should always fall on men not to rape in the first place, instead of falling on women not to "get themselves raped".  The fact that so many people still deny such an obvious truth in 2018 shows just how far we have yet to go towards eliminating or even reducing this epidemic, and those who blame or otherwise put the onus on potential or actual victims are in fact part of the problem.

We seriously need to drain the proverbial swamp of rape culture, yesterday, and thus revoke the rapists' social license to operate.  Culturally, we need to tackle the root causes of sexual violence by rejecting the highly toxic "commodity model" of sexuality and replacing it with the "performance model" (while also avoiding the negative connotations and pitfalls of the word "performance"), and more generally rejecting the "dominator model" of society and replacing it with the "partnership model".  And for alcohol, we need to recognize that while adopting a "Prohibition-Lite" approach of any sort is most likely to backfire and would throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, its link with sexual violence still needs to be dealt with in the meantime as cultural changes can take much time to occur.

So what measures can be taken in the very near term to quickly reduce or at least take the dangerous edge off of this seemingly intractable epidemic?  The reader may or may not like the answer, but here goes:

1. Lower the legal drinking age to 18, yesterday, full stop.  The 21 drinking age makes drinking that much more dangerous than it has to be by forcing it underground, which can put young drinkers in more dangerous situations that increase the risk of sexual assault, and the law itself can be used as a cudgel to silence victims.
2. Raise the tax on alcoholic beverages, both federally as well as at the state and local level (especially in college towns), with extra levies on bulk alcohol such as kegs, cases, and handles. Studies have shown a significant inverse correlation between alcohol prices and rape in general.
3. Legalize cannabis for everyone 18 and older, yesterday.  Cannabis is clearly the safer choice in that regard, as it is highly unlikely to fuel violence or be used as a date-rape drug the way that alcohol all too often is.
4. Pass "Yes Means Yes" laws (aka affirmative consent laws) similar to California's.  If properly written, these laws will essentially eliminate the concept of so-called "gray area rape" by putting the onus on the initiator of sexual activity to be sure that they actually have consent before proceeding further.
5. Last but not least, hold the perpetrators accountable for a change, no matter how powerful or privileged they happen to be.  That includes enforcing both criminal laws as well as campus conduct policies to the fullest extent of the law.  No more Brock Turners.

As for the idea of colleges trying to influence upward the prices of cheap alcohol at parties (particularly Greek parties) that are typically $5 or so at the door for all-you-can-drink, that would be rather difficult to enforce in practice.  But if the drinking age was lowered to 18, most frats would likely end up having a "going out of business party" since their modern-day speakeasy services would no longer be necessary.  And those that remain would, in practice, throw less frequent parties and/or  ones with less beer (or liquor) to go around if the tax on such beverages is also hiked as well.

Doing these things will go a long way towards reducing the rape and sexual assault epidemic in the near term.  Anything less would be uncivilized. So what are we waiting for?

Do Alcohol Taxes Still Work to Save Lives?

Avid readers of our blog would note that Twenty-One Debunked supports raising the tax on alcoholic beverages almost as wholeheartedly as we support lowering the drinking age to 18.  And there are reams and reams of research evidence over many decades--locally, nationally, and internationally--that find that higher alcohol prices (and thus taxes) save lives both on and off the highways as well as reduce crime, violence, and other alcohol-related problems.   In contrast, the ageist abomination that is the 21 drinking age has not consistently demonstrated similar effectiveness in that regard, no matter what sort of pseudo-consensus exists in the minds of its most ardent supporters, and the best evidence thus far has exposed the specious claim of saving lives as little more than a mere statistical mirage all along.

That said, for the specific endpoint of alcohol-related traffic fatalities, among the reams of evidence there have been a few outlier studies that seem to cast doubt on the lifesaving effect of alcohol prices/taxes as well.  The most recent one in 2017 by McClelland and Iselin of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center studied the effects of the Illinois alcohol tax hikes in both 1999 and 2009, and found no long-term lifesaving effect from either one in terms of drunk driving deaths.  In contrast, a previous 2015 study by Wagenaar et al. had found a fairly large drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths following the 2009 Illinois tax hike, even after controlling for the effects of the Great Recession.  The biggest difference between the two studies was that McClelland and Iselin used the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) while Wagenaar et al. did not, and while a good method, like all methods it too can have its own share of pitfalls.

As for the other outlier studies, most of those are dissected and discussed in a 2015 replication review by David Roodman, which still concludes that a true lifesaving effect is likely.  One such outlier study is by Dee (1999), whose control for state-specific time trends apparently removed too much useful variation in state-level beer taxes.  And while Roodman did not discuss our all-time favorite study by Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), we should note that this study in fact began by replicating Dee (1999) using more years of data and including Alaska, Hawaii, and DC, and in contrast to Dee they did apparently find a fairly strong inverse correlation between beer taxes and 18-20 year old traffic deaths even after adjusting for state-specific time trends.

Granted, it is true that for the specific endpoint of DUI deaths, the price of alcohol may not be quite as important as it once was.  Drunk driving is far less common and far less socially acceptable than it was a generation ago, and legal sanctions against it are much stiffer now as well.  And with alcohol prices currently at a record low in relative terms, and alcohol taxes generally being a small portion of the overall price, the link between the two may not be as salient or noticeable as it once was due to being swamped or masked by other factors.  But that does not mean that it is ineffective, given the fact that several more recent studies continue to find such effects, and the numerous studies that continue find fairly large benefits in terms of reducing non-traffic deaths and harms as well (cirrhosis, unintentional injuries, cancer, crime, violence, STDs, etc.).

Thus, the overwhelming weight of the evidence still continues to support the idea that raising alcohol taxes/prices is an effective (and especially cost-effective) public health policy in terms of saving lives both on and off the highways as well as reducing alcohol-related problems in general.  And if it is high enough, it is also justified on Pigouvian grounds as well.  So what are we waiting for?

The One Thing That Philip J. Cook and Wayland Ellis Both Agree On

Sometimes an idea comes along that is so compelling that even polar opposites of a particular ideological or public policy spectrum are willing to at least grudgingly embrace.  And sometimes that idea is not only not a new one, but has existed since practically forever yet has been largely underutilized all the same despite all the evidence in its favor.

Take the following two authors and researchers:  Philip J. Cook (author of Paying the Tab:  The Costs And Benefits of Alcohol Control) and Wayland Ellis (author of Abolish the Drinking Age:  The Conservative Case Against Alcohol Regulation).  The two can be considered to be each other's foil in many ways in regards to alcohol.  Cook is American, pro-21, pro-regulation, leans a bit more liberal than conservative, and leans more communitarian than libertarian.  In contrast, Ellis is British, anti-21, anti-regulation, conservative by British standards, and leans quite libertarian even by American standards.   

And yet, there is one thing that they both agree on:  the single most effective public policy measure to reduce alcohol-related harms is higher alcohol prices, such as through higher alcohol taxes.  Cook arrives at that conclusion enthusiastically while Ellis arrives at it perhaps a bit grudgingly, but the conclusion is the same regardless despite their otherwise polar opposite views on the drinking age and alcohol regulation in general.  Now that really says something!

And it pans out, given the reams upon reams of research evidence that arrive at that same conclusion in a wide variety of times, places, demographics, and functional forms.  Twenty-One Debunked generally agrees more with Cook than Ellis on most of the topics under discussion with the notable exception of the drinking age of course.  Especially since Cook's own 1984 study with Tauchen was one of the now-outdated studies that convinced the feds to force states to raise the drinking age to 21 in the first place.  We agree with Cook on some things, Ellis on others, and clearly agree with both on the issue of alcohol taxes.  Alcohol prices relative to inflation and income are currently at a record low in the USA, in no small part because taxes are at at a record low as well.  And there really is no overarching benefit to society for alcohol to be that cheap, while there is plenty of proven and serious harm from the excessive drinking (among all ages) that such cheap alcohol encourages.

Twenty-One Debunked supports lowering the drinking age to 18, while also raising and equalizing the federal alcohol taxes across the board to $24/proof-gallon, equal to the inflation-adjusted 1991 level for distilled spirits.  That would be a little more than an extra dollar for a six-pack of beer or an extra dollar on a fifth of liquor.  That could be done more gradually by first raising it to $16/proof-gallon and then to $24 a year later. Additionally, we would also be fine with (though not necessarily wedded to) the idea of setting a minimum price of $0.50-0.75 per standard drink or at least banning the practice of retailers selling alcohol below cost (already banned in many states).   Cook would support the latter idea of a price floor while Ellis would most likely not, but both would at least support higher alcohol taxes.

So what are we waiting for?

Of Death And Taxes, Part Deux

While the opioid epidemic has recently been declared a public health emergency, what if we were to tell you that there is another drug epidemic that kills even more people (a whopping 88,000 per year vs. 65,000 per year for opioid and all other drug overdoses combined), a number that has actually been increasing in recent years?  And that number, though staggering in itself, is merely the tip of a very large iceberg of injury, illness, crime, violence, motor vehicle crashes, family breakdown, addiction, and other social costs linked to this deadly yet ubiquitous substance.  Meanwhile, the powers that be are responding to this epidemic with a collective shrug for the most part.  I think the reader would figure out by now that we are talking about alcohol.

And aside from its overall banality, what is particularly notable about the alcohol epidemic is how ageist our response has been.  While the epidemic clearly affects all ages, the powers that be have been focusing in laser-like fashion on people under 21 while largely ignoring people over 21, despite the fact that people over 21 make up the vast majority of this epidemic.  Not only does this scapegoat young people for largely adult problems, but it also hinders any real solutions to such problems as well.  It's basically the "pink elephant in the room".

Fortunately, we know now after decades of reams of research evidence that there is in fact a very simple solution for reducing the death rates and other harms of excessive drinking.  And that solution is raising alcohol taxes.   The higher the price of alcoholic beverages, the fewer deaths and other alcohol-related problems occur, all else being equal.  Even modest increases seem to have a significant impact.   We know this, yet not only have the powers that be generally let the alcohol taxes lag behind inflation, but have actually moved to lower such taxes as a lesser-known part of the new Republican tax bill.  

So what should the ideal alcohol tax be?  According to researchers, the externality costs of alcohol are estimated to be around $45-58 per proof-gallon, yet the federal tax on distilled spirits is $13.50 per proof-gallon, and for wine and beer it varies but tends to hover between $4 and $5 per proof-gallon.  And while state and local alcohol taxes vary, they are also generally very modest in most states, especially for beer.  So there is a very wide range by which such taxes can be raised while still being socially efficient.

Of course, those figures are now effectively even lower now that the Republican tax bill has lowered such rates even further for roughly the first 100,000 proof-gallons of all alcoholic beverage categories across the board.  But the aforementioned rates still remain the top rates above the respective thresholds in the now-tiered system.  Beer was always tiered with a reduced rate for the first 60,000 barrels, but now that reduced rate is even lower still, and for the first time ever distilled spirits now enjoy a reduced rate for the first 100,000 proof-gallons.  The rate structure is not inherently bad in itself, of course, but both the new and old rates are simply too low.

Twenty-One Debunked believes that, along with lowering the drinking age to 18, that alcohol taxes should be raised significantly.  Specifically, we support raising and equalizing the federal tax on all alcoholic beverages to the inflation-adjusted 1991 level for distilled spirits, which would be $24 per proof-gallon in 2016 dollars.  It should also be simplified by getting rid of all credits and lower tax rates, with perhaps the exception of ones for the first X number of proof-gallons produced by very small domestic producers.  At the state level, it would also be good to equalize alcohol taxes across all beverage types, while allowing localities to levy their own alcohol taxes (including sales and gross excise taxes) as they see fit.  The latter is especially important for college towns.

Even a smaller hike, such as to $16 per proof-gallon across the board, would likely save thousands of lives per year according to researchers.  And of course it would also raise more revenue.  As for job losses, the best research suggests that the net effect is actually neutral or even positive with respect to jobs overall.  So it should be a no-brainer.  A win-win-win situation for everyone but the alcohol industry, basically.

Oh, and by the way:  craft breweries (both macro and micro) not only exist in high-tax Canada, but actually appear to be thriving over there.  Ditto for even higher-tax Iceland as well.   Keep in mind that the tax hikes we propose would still leave American beverages cheaper than Canadian beverages.  So even if we raise such taxes dramatically without reduced rates or credits for small producers, they will likely continue to thrive here as well (at least if such tax hikes are phased in somewhat gradually).

Don't get us wrong, Twenty-One Debunked does not believe that alcohol is inherently evil or anything like that.   We are certainly not in league with the neo-dry lobby!  But when we as a society fail to appreciate that alcohol has a very real dark side for all ages, there are very serious consequences to doing so.  History speaks for itself.  So what are we waiting for?

Of Death And Taxes

While the opioid epidemic has recently been declared a public health emergency, what if we were to tell you that there is another drug epidemic that kills even more people (a whopping 88,000 per year vs. 65,000 per year for opioid and all other drug overdoses combined), a number that has actually been increasing in recent years?  And that number, though staggering in itself, is merely the tip of a very large iceberg of injury, illness, crime, violence, motor vehicle crashes, family breakdown, addiction, and other social costs linked to this deadly yet ubiquitous substance.  Meanwhile, the powers that be are responding to this epidemic with a collective shrug for the most part.  I think the reader would figure out by now that we are talking about alcohol.

And aside from its overall banality, what is particularly notable about the alcohol epidemic is how ageist our response has been.  While the epidemic clearly affects all ages, the powers that be have been focusing in laser-like fashion on people under 21 while largely ignoring people over 21, despite the fact that people over 21 make up the vast majority of this epidemic.  Not only does this scapegoat young people for largely adult problems, but it also hinders any real solutions to such problems as well.  It's basically the "pink elephant in the room".

Fortunately, we know now after decades of reams of research evidence that there is in fact a very simple solution for reducing the death rates and other harms of excessive drinking.  And that solution is raising alcohol taxes.   The higher the price of alcoholic beverages, the fewer deaths and other alcohol-related problems occur, all else being equal.  Even modest increases seem to have a significant impact.   We know this, yet not only have the powers that be generally let the alcohol taxes lag behind inflation, but are currently trying to lower such taxes.  

So what should the ideal alcohol tax be?  According to researchers, the externality costs of alcohol are estimated to be around $45-58 per proof-gallon, yet the federal tax on distilled spirits is $13.50 per proof-gallon, and for wine and beer it varies but tends to hover between $4 and $5 per proof-gallon.   And while state and local alcohol taxes vary, they are also generally very modest in most states, especially for beer.  So there is a very wide range by which such taxes can be raised while still being socially efficient.

Twenty-One Debunked believes that, along with lowering the drinking age to 18, that alcohol taxes should be raised significantly.  Specifically, we support raising and equalizing the federal tax on all alcoholic beverages to the inflation-adjusted 1991 level for distilled spirits, which would be $24 per proof-gallon in 2016 dollars.  It should also be simplified by getting rid of all credits and lower tax rates, with perhaps the exception of ones for the first X number of gallons produced by very small domestic producers.  At the state level, it would also be good to equalize alcohol taxes across all beverage types, while allowing localities to levy their own alcohol taxes (including sales and gross excise taxes) as they see fit.  The latter is especially important for college towns.

Even a smaller hike, such as to $16 per proof-gallon across the board, would likely save thousands of lives per year according to researchers.  And of course it would also raise more revenue.  As for job losses, the best research suggests that the net effect is actually neutral or even positive with respect to jobs overall.  So it should be a no-brainer.  A win-win-win situation for everyone but the alcohol industry, basically.

Oh, and by the way:  craft breweries (both macro and micro) not only exist in high-tax Canada, but actually appear to be thriving over there.  Keep in mind that the tax hikes we propose would still leave American beverages cheaper than Canadian beverages.  So even if we raise such taxes dramatically without reduced rates or credits for small producers, they will likely continue to thrive here as well (at least if such tax hikes are phased in somewhat gradually).

Don't get us wrong, Twenty-One Debunked does not believe that alcohol is inherently evil or anything like that.   We are certainly not in league with the neo-dry lobby.   But when we as a society fail to appreciate that alcohol has a very real dark side for all ages, there are very serious consequences to doing so.  History speaks for itself.  So what are we waiting for?