Persuasive Essay On Alcohol Taxes

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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 …show more content…

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

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