But what a delicious problem it is.

In Australia, the federal government recently significantly raised the tax on Alcopops, which increased the price of pre-mixed drinks. The rationale behind this tax hike was to target drinks popular with young people, the most likely to binge drink.

Hard to tell yet whether it has been effective- it's a fairly recent tax, and the sale of spirits has certainly increased since it was introduced- but it's an interesting real-world example of a recent alcohol tax.

Thanks Erin. I will look at that.

Sure, alcohol is bad. But given our current state of health as a nation, the effects of its cultivation on the environment, and the extent of its use, I'd say that sugar - by far - is our nation's most serious drug problem.

To make a clear point on this - the results of the authors meta-analysis may imply that any shift in the drinking age would result in an increased mortality rate around the drinking age threshold BUT - this does not argue for a direct role of alcohol in these deaths.

Thought experiment: extend the black line in the first half of the graph out across the whole graph. The result? The discontinuity the authors note is a temporary uptick in the death rate with an exponential decay with an asymptote around 23 years. To me, what this suggests is that the existence of a drinking age itself is causal in the uptick in the death rate. This doesn't necessarily influence the argument on the alcohol tax, but makes the study a much less appealing point from which to jump into an argument on the societal costs of alcohol consumption (and/or might lead to another line of thought concerning the regulation of alcohol consumption).

Just sayin'.

I wouldn't mind paying 5-10 cents more per drink, though I'm not sure it would change my "drinking behavior."

I would like to see that graph extended because even by the end of it it starts dipping again. I'm not sure one can define what an earlier MDA would create. Given the current drinking culture, lowering it would create marginally more harm, but that is why the drinking culture itself needs to be addressed.

Particularly since sugar is so addictive according to all traditional indicia of addiction.

Most troublesome to me, however, is how early the typical user in the US starts getting heavy into sugar. Oftentimes by age two or three, children have been chained to the Big S (other street names include Fruit Loops, Kix, Trix, Pixie Stix, Slice, Count Chocula, and Krispy Kreme Hot 'n Fresh).

It comes in a variety of forms, and there is even evidence that a government conspiracy exists to fund the substance and its advertising, introducing it into both Caucasian and minority communities to promote the onset of future health problems, thereby benefiting pharmaceutical corporations.

Oh, and sugars are what ferment to create alcohol.

On the sugar topic - this cute little paper deserves to be more widely read:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000698

So... Did the "large majority of animals" include silly rabbits?

I'm wondering if legalizing beer at 19 and liquor at 21 would reduce the big jump at 21. Certainly the urge to get hammered on your 21st birthday would be reduced.

No, just silly french rats.

...and i'm not quite sure that 'easing into it' as far as the legal drinking age would actually help. It just would be nice to note that there are factors above and beyond 'alcohol being bad' at play that are a product of the laws we've already drawn around the issue.

I'm wondering if legalizing beer at 19 and liquor at 21 would reduce the big jump at 21. Certainly the urge to get hammered on your 21st birthday would be reduced.

Well, they used to do that 3.2 beer thing in some states. I was just a bit too young to experience that, but I've heard stories from slightly older guys of them sitting there guzzling it trying desperately to catch a buzz...

Looks like the answer is to raise the minimum drinking age to something like 121.

I'm glad you say that there is a correlation. My personal experiences with such individuals is that alcohol is only a proximal cause, not the underlying one, of ill health, however you want to define it. Not every time, of course, but I think this is true in the majority of cases.

So while raising taxes to fund treatment programs may be a good idea, you'd probably want to provide a substitute like marijuana.

But doesn't the graph indicate that the rise in the death rate is temporary? So lowering the drinking age by a year might kill 400 or so 20 year olds but it would save 400 or so 21 year olds.

And if the majority of these are due to driving accidents, then doesn't this suggest that the drinking age should be lowered to, say, 14. That way whatever would have caused the uptick would be over before driving age.

What's important here is correcting the statistical disparity.

To that end, I propose we all pledge to act locally. Next time you're out and a poor kid asks you to buy him some beer, heed the little guy's request. Volunteer to host your child's graduation party - and pitch on a keg.

The more drunk teenagers we can create, the less abrupt the numbers will be. Do your part. The future belongs to us all.

Another interesting proposed legal reform I've heard about is banning cash machines from venues that serve alcohol, which is an interesting, though obviously problematic, way to encourage responsible drinking. I doubt many would go for it, though.

Except that the kids don't use cash. Plastic was made for the bar tab.

We had 3.2 beer in Ohio from 18-21. Yeah, you can get drunk on it that I know. Thing is, you ingrain the habit of drinking a 12 pack every night so that when you finally by the good stuff you drink way too much. Or something.

But doesn't the graph indicate that the rise in the death rate is temporary?

I don't see it. The graph levels off towards the end. It's possible there is a slight rise or fall -- the data is too granular to tell.

It would be nice to see similar graphs from other countries for comparison.

The thing is that I don't buy into this idea that a small increase in taxes will result in less drinking by those who need to drink less. It's a heckuva lot more likely that someone who wants to drink will consume a certain amount of alcohol in the price range that he can afford and will adjust the sort of alcohol to match his price range accordingly. In short, the type of alcohol consumed is probably quite elastic, but the amount of alcohol consumed is probably inelastic.

An alcohol tax of the sort described will probably raise plenty of money-- people who want to drink will drink. A few thrifty people will probably eschew a drink or two, but the program will still raise plenty of revenue. What the tax won't do will be to reduce the amount of alcoholism or make us any safer.

Tyro, what about taxation as a means to fund medical care for alcohol-related illness, alcohol prevention programs, and better drink-driving detection programs?

It's counterproductive to lament that hiking the price a bit will not directly affect the habits of alcoholics. Methods that would directly influence those habits would involve sacrificing freedoms. The best you can do is use the money to fund education and treatment, and trust in people to start making the right decisions. It's a sin tax, which isn't all that uncommon in America.

I've about had it with the neo-prohibitionists. Enough. You could statistically prove that raising the drinking age will save X lives. I really couldn't give a damn.

Legalize it already. As far as alcohol, keep the focus on drinking and driving and teach kids to drink at home in a controlled environment. Everything else is just another selfish and futile attempt to use public policy to reduce risk to zero.

Good post. I just wanted to quibble with the ending statement, "Alcohol is our most costly drug problem" -- are you really going to put it above tobacco?

The best you can do is use the money to fund education and treatment, and trust in people to start making the right decisions.

Then be up front about it-- this is a tax meant to raise money. It's slightly more palatable than raising, say, income taxes to fund education and treatment because we're more comfortable with taxing one set of goods to fund services related to those same goods.

However, what I want people to do is prove to me that this education and treatment helps.

If price was an impediment to heavy drinking, then college students would be some of the most sober people in the world. As it is, people who want to get drunk simply purchase the alcohol in their budget to fulfill amount they wish to drink, rather than modifying their drinking amount based on their budget. Only the responsible will end up drinking less.

I am sort of curious, however, who corn and grain subsidies affect the alcohol industry and how it influences what we drink.

How many lives would you save if you raised the drinking age to 50? Or made alcohol illegal again?

It takes a big man to deny other people their rights.

So-called 'problem drinking' refers to a subset with an intense drive to self-medicate and poor access to approved alternatives. Raising costs without provision of a safer replacement is a perfect way to generate revenue by directly causing greater harm.

Simply handing out free marijuana would be far more likely to actually reduce "problem drinking". That wouldn't raise any money, however.

It's absurd to take figures like this, which are, after all, just numbers, and dangle them over a complex matrix of social and environmental factors, pretending they can mesh. That Pollack didn't address the complexities of the argument, even in a one line aside, signifies a failure to recognise that a study of this kind can't point to future policy directions. As a number of commenters have pointed out, the problem is the novelty element: when people start to drink legally they drink a lot, and they make mistakes. The assertion that lowering the drinking age to 20 would 'cause' 408 extra deaths each year, with the implication that a reduction in the legal drinking age would be irresponsible, betrays a fundamental lack of understanding that these figures, in themselves, do not, and cannot, lead to any such conclusion.

Robert Whiting you are truly decived. Sugar is not dangerous.

One problem with very high taxes on alcohol is that alcohol is very easy to make.

IHMO Better electronic safety features in cars would help most. Violence must be address some other way.

At least one study has shown that violent crime falls in economic down turns due to people afording less drinking.

3.2-ah but that brings back memories! I got REALLY drunk on that weak beer on my 18th birthday many moons ago. I'm curious about research on the efficacy of the 3.2 beer for teen drinkers. Did it make any difference in reducing binge drinking?

Poor Noah. Dude gets drunk and passes out nekkid, and people are still telling the story thousands of years later. I hope my peccadilloes are not so well remembered in the millennia to come.

growing up as the son of a severe alcoholic I can say with personal certainty that increased taxes on alcohol would not save one life.

We tried numerous times to get him to quit, go to rehab, etc. There were tons of programs available through our community, his union, church's and on and on.

None of them would get him to quit until he wanted to and unfortunately for my dad he never did quit and in the end it killed him and cost him his family and everyone he ever loved in his life.

All that said, our most dangerous drug is a government drunk on taxes and you are an enabler.

Higher taxes would have only made our family more broke than we were due to my dad's drinking.

Higher taxes would have only made our family more broke than we were due to my dad's drinking.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when someone turns a heart-rending story about the destructive nature of alcoholism into a call for lower taxes as the solution to their problems.

Alcohol abuse is a symptom of sickness, not the sickness itself. As for drinking and driving, eliminating the sober drivers would save many more lives than eliminating the drunk drivers, but who's for that?

maybe you should actually pay attention to the topic at hand. Ezra's suggestion that we increase "sin taxes" would prevent alcoholism, or get alcoholics to treatment is absurd. It would have two outcomes, punishing alcoholics and their families and raise yet more money for government.

I told that personal story in the hopes someone might actually pay attention. I guess in your case I failed.