I believe that alcohol taxes should be raised in order to reduce the frequency of alcohol abuse. A sharp increase in taxes has been shown to decrease the number of alcohol abusers. Instituting these tax increases could save thousands of lives and billions of dollars annually.
Excessive alcohol consumption is a serious public health issue in the United States. It is responsible for the deaths of over 79,000 people annually. Despite massive efforts to combat alcohol abuse since the 1980s, binge drinking has continued to rise. It is especially prevalent amongst underage drinkers, who binge drink at a rate of 90%. Alcohol taxes to fix various issues have been used throughout the history of the United States.
Alcohol taxes have existed since
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the American Revolutionary War. They were first instituted to pay off war debts, but overtime the rate has fluctuated based on public approval of alcohol. They were continuously used during after major wars such as the Civil War and World War II to pay off debts. Alcohol taxes in the 20th century focused primarily on decreasing the amount of perilous activity associated with alcohol abuse. In addition, binge drinking as a whole has increased by a rate of 17.2% from 2005-2015, indicating the seriousness of the issue. Issues such as drunk driving, alcohol induced violence and binge drinking are all related to the peril of alcohol abuse. There is evidence showing that by increasing taxes on alcohol can affect the rate of binge drinking. Research has shown that by increasing taxes on alcohol binge drinking has been decreased.
Boston University School of Public Health discovered that a one percent increase in alcohol taxes, lead to a nearly one and a half percent decline in binge drinking. This study conducted in 2014, proved that a tax system that focused on combining a value and volume based was effective in reducing the number of binge drinkers. This contradicts other studies that proved otherwise solely using the volume based method. The research indicates that taxation on alcohol must be changed.
Currently volume based taxes, a major component of the alcohol tax, has remained mostly stagnant since the 1950s. This is due to most states not increasing the tax with the inflation, to match the cost of living. Increasing these taxes could decrease the rate of binge drinking, but there is also evidence indicating that it could hurt responsible consumers. Many people that suffer from binge drinking also suffer from alcoholism. They are more willing to pay higher tax rates for alcohol than their more responsible counterparts. Creating new taxes could hurt many responsible drinkers, while barely affecting the binge drinking population.
Solving the issue of whether taxes should be raised on alcoholic beverages is very difficult. I believe that volume taxes should be raised to match the rate of inflation. However, more research needs to be conducted before choosing to increase taxes by a rate that would deter responsible
drinkers.
Why Shouldn’t We Lower the Blood Alcohol Rate? It is a tragic truth: About 10,000 lives are lost in the United States because of drunk driving each year. Alcohol is widely known as one of the main reasons for causing social security issues. Small amounts can make people feel relaxed, but bigger amounts can make them lose their coordination, get a feeling of confusion and disorientation, and significantly slow their reaction time. On average, one person dies every hour because of an alcoholic traffic accident in the United States.
For decades, certain people have been contemplating on how to go about the issue of underage drinking; people of the government, parents, and other individuals concerned in global affairs. The problem is, the issue of underage drinking and the nationwide ineffectiveness of the drinking age law of twenty-one isn't debated and discussed as much and as aggressively as it should be. And the main components of discussion ought to be the matter of binge drinking among teenagers and college students, drinking issues and statistics in foreign countries, and finally, possible solutions for this problem. The main point is that the states of our country can only attempt to enforce the law rather than try approaching the problem in any other way. So for that reason, states should be allowed to figure out and experiment on possible ways to solve this matter on their own without government interference.
...vity to rise. Today, the use and abuse of alcohol continues to grow in the United States.
According to Andrew Herman, “Each year, 14,000 die from drinking too much. 600,000 are victims of alcohol related physical assault and 17,000 are a result of drunken driving deaths, many being innocent bystanders” (470). These massive numbers bring about an important realization: alcohol is a huge issue in America today. Although the problem is evident in Americans of all ages, the biggest issue is present in young adults and teens. In fact, teens begin to feel the effects of alcohol twice as fast as adults and are more likely to participate in “binge-drinking” (Sullivan 473). The problem is evident, but the solution may be simple. Although opponents argue lowering the drinking age could make alcohol available to some teens not mature enough to handle it, lowering the drinking age actually teaches responsibility and safety in young adults, maintains consistency in age laws, and diminishes temptation.
were drinking to get drunk than their counterparts a decade earlier, and one recent study reported an increase, just since 1994, in the number of students who drink deliberately to get drunk? (Smith 1). I interviewed my friend Shelly Mitchell who recently turned twenty-one and asked her how she felt about finally being legal to drink. She quoted, ?It is not as exciting to drink anymore, I mean I still like to go out with my friends to bars, but the fun is all over, in high school and college it was so exciting trying to get alcohol by using a fake ID.? All of these factors could be changed by lowering the drinking age to eighteen. In a study done by the Harvard School of Public Health, binge drinking is defined as five drinks in a row for boys and four drinks for girls. And when they did a survey they found that 44% of the students attending Harvard binge drink (Jeffrey Kluger 1).
As one of the major social problem, underage drinking can cause negative affect on both teenagers themselves and the whole society. Based on the research, approximately 190,000 youth under 21 visited emergency room for alcohol related hurts, even I accompanied one of my friends to ICU for alcohol poisoning nearly month ago. Annually about 5000 individuals under 21 die from it, not including other mature people directly or indirectly killed by them. Meanwhile, child’s brain and emotional developments are still in process until 20s so that taking alcohol will produce great damage on their body health. For example, alcohol can interfere with children’s capacity to build new, short, and lasting memories of information because it shrinks hippocampus about 10
...ing statistics tell us that the following interventions help to reduce the incidence of binge drinking:
It is sad. People from all races and backgrounds are obese. In a recent survey done at Henry Ford College, 43 percent of students were overweight. Whether it is because they do not follow a healthy diet or they inherited it from their parents. Being overweight is correlated with lacking exercise or physical activity and not watching what is on the plate. Obesity can cause many illnesses, including diabetes, which is very common. As the debate whether soda tax should take effect arises, critics say that the tax will help those with obesity-related illnesses. What about exercising and maintaining a healthy lifestyle? These two factors cannot be forgotten knowing they are the most important. Americans have consumed 12 percent of soda and become less active since 1970. A soda tax aims to stop consumers from buying soda to help those who are obese. This will not be effective. Therefore a soda tax will not be good public policy.
The current drinking age in the United States of America is 21. There are some people who agree with the current drinking age even some who think it should be raised. On the other hand, a number of people feel that the current drinking age produces more problems than it prevents (“Cross Fire”). The United States has unsuccessfully tried prohibition legislation not once, but twice in the past. These laws were eventually done away with due to the inability to enforce and the repercussion towards them that ended up causing even more trials and tribulations (Engs). “Prohibition demonstrates beyond a doubt that drinking and the problems caused by drinking cannot simply be eliminated from the United States” (Olson). In the present day, the government is still reiterating the same mistakes that they made in past attempts (Engs). Research from the early 1980’s until present-day shows a decrease in per capita consumption instead, there has been an increase in other problems involving excessive and negligent drinking amongst college students after the twenty –one year old law in 1987 (Engs). The current drinking age of 21 is not effective and is causing other social problems. (Engs). This calls for us as a nation to change our existing drinking law.
Many young adults and college educators argue that the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) should be lowered but I disagree. I don’t think that lowering the legal drinking age would be a good idea because alcohol is one of the main causes of deaths among young adults and also affects their academic performance. Lowering the legal age of drinking will just be a huge mistake. The government should instead raise it higher than 21 or enforce the MLDA more.
Imagine America today where alcohol is banned. People would think that this would help control order in America but banning alcohol would not be the best idea. Alcohol were those kinds of beverages that was used for centuries but is widely accepted by most people today. Most people would even want to try drinking alcohol in their lifetime. However, alcohol is one of the main social issues in America, being the cause of accidents, health deterioration, and crimes. There are people who are in favor of liquor, but there are others who are against the idea of alcohol. This brings us to the roaring twenties where the eighteenth amendment was in effect. The eighteenth amendment of the constitution, also known as “The Noble Experiment”, was an establishment of prohibiting the production, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the United States. The purpose of this amendment was to reduce the crimes and violence that involved the consumption of alcohol. The purpose was to also improve health and to prevent people from poverty. Thus began the Prohibition era. The amendment was a law that backfired in gaining control within America. Once the prohibition era started, it changed everything. There was organized crimes and corruption in the United States, the economy went bad, saloons were closed, leaving most owners in poverty, and violence had increased since mobsters smuggled and fought each other for the marketing of alcohol. The twenty first amendment which repealed the eighteenth amendment, thus making alcohol legal again. The prohibition era failed to control alcohol consumption because of the increase in organized crimes and that the government spent billions of dollars trying to prevent drinking in the United States .
Teenage drinking has become a big problem around the world the studies have shown between seventy to eighty percent of every teen has had an alcoholic beverage. (ClayPool 2) That is about half of the students in a public school. 1.9 million teens from the day they turned twelve to the age of twenty are considered heavy drinkers. (Well-connected 21) But only twelve out of fifteen actually have a problem drinking alcoholic beverages. (Goodwin 63) Many teens die in traffic accidents each day from the age sixteen to nineteen. There has been around 2,700 teens in the United States killed and almost 321,000 were treated for injuries suffered by motor-vehicle crashes, but then were released to go home. The cost to repair the damages of an alcohol-related accident is estimated to be around one-thousand, five- hundred all the way up to one-hundred, forty-eight billion dollars. ("Teenage" 64) But alcohol-related crashes also cost American taxpayers one-hundred billion dollars not just the driver. ("Drinking") Days of the week with the highest deat...
Driving under the influence is one of the most common and dangerous situations in which anyone can be or be placed. Drinking and driving is a serious offence that can cause someone to be physically harm or even killed. Not only are you putting yourself at risk but you are also risking the lives of passengers in the car as well as any other car and occupants sharing the road with you. Many people believe that increasing fines for drunk driving offenders will play a compelling role in cutting down the occurrences of driving under the influence. However, while harsher DUI laws will look effective on paper, they will not make a significant step in the fight against drunk driving. Although there is a law enforced for drinking and driving in the
The enforcement of the current legal drinking age is both time-consuming and overall inefficient; the money and time used towards trying to prevent underage drinking and catch underage drinkers is taking money away from programs and businesses that could use this money much more effectively. For instance, the money used towards enforcing the current drinking age could actually be used to educate 18-20 year olds on safe drinking practices. Regardless of what the drinking age is set at, this age group is going to drink; approximately 3 out of 4 high school senior reported drinking alcohol at some previous point in their lives. So, if young adults are going to be drinking in spite of the law, the money used to enforce the law should then be used
Alcohol has been in the world for many centuries and has become a pain but also somewhat of a solution to society. It can be viewed as something to be a social gathering that brings friends together or it can be taking as destruction to someone. Over the years alcohol has played many roles in the world but it plays an even bigger role in substance abuse. Doctors have made several points that it is okay to have a drink every now and again but people need to realize when one drink has become too many. The ideal of having a drink with friends or going out and having an occasional drink is acceptable; However, is it still acceptable when a person find their selves having a drink first thing in the morning or runs to a drink to solve their people.