USA: Alcohol Tax Not Covering Society’s Alcohol Costs

According to a new study, alcohol taxes in the USA don’t come close to covering society’s costs due to pervasive alcohol harm. While profits are pocketed by a few Big Alcohol business executives and shareholders, the costs of massive alcohol harm are externalized and socialized for the public to pay for.
The study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs found the total harm caused by alcohol use is a whopping $2.05 per unit of alcohol in the United States, and, of this, the government ends up paying about 80 cents per unit of alcohol. However, the federal government and states only bring in about 21 cents per unit of alcohol on average in alcohol taxes…