Alcohol Deaths Rise in United States During Pandemic

According to latest findings from a brand new study, alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. increased by about 25% from 2019 to 2020. This is a sharp rise from the 2.2% average annual percent increase in alcohol-related deaths between 1999 and 2017.
The alcohol industry has been exploiting the pandemic to drive higher sales and profits. Pandemic-centric marketing, such as promoting alcohol use to cope with pandemic stressors, has been particularly harmful. The alcohol alcohol industry also deploys other strategies to exploit the pandemic for profit maximization. For example, Big Alcohol has relentlessly lobbied to weaken U.S. state alcohol laws. A direct result of Big Alcohol lobbying pressure is that almost every U.S. federal state has weakened alcohol laws in 2020, according to Boston University researchers.