Higher Alcohol Prices Save Lives In Connecticut
A lawsuit challenging the Connecticut statute that controls the minimum price for wine and liquor fails to take into account the societal and economic costs that alcohol burdens Connecticut with.
Lawsuit driven by profit greed
Total Wine & More, a chain of liquor stores, sued the state of Connecticut over statutory minimum prices for wine and liquor. BevMax, a separate chain of liquor stores, has joined the lawsuit. Their arguments are about the own profit maximization.
Big Alcohol contends that minimum unit prices on wine and liquor, particularly the inability to sell these products below cost, inhibit the consumer’s purchasing power and the reduced sales result in lost tax revenue for the state.
Society’s interest in MUP
What Big Alcohol omits is the massive health, social and economic costs of alcohol use and associated harm in the state of Connecticut. The policy of minimum unit pricing (MUP) is a public policy measure in the interest in individuals, families, communities and the federal state at large.
CDC evidence shows that alcohol harm drains the Connecticut economy with more than $3 billion in 2010 alone in direct health care costs, lost productivity, criminal justice costs and motor vehicle crashes. This is 49 times greater than the revenue generated by the alcohol excise tax ($61.6 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2015) and nearly 15 times greater than sales tax revenue collected from all food and beverage stores ($206.6 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2015). Connecticut pays more for alcohol harm than the alcohol trade adds to the economy.
Alcohol harm in young people in the state
Underage alcohol use is widespread in Connecticut. Approximately 143,000 minors consume alcohol each year. In 2013, Connecticut students in grades 9 to 12 reported the following:
Costs of Underage Alcohol Use Connecticut, 2013 $
- 66.7% had at least one drink of alcohol on one or more days during their life.
- 14.9% had their first drink of alcohol, other than a few sips, before age 13.
- 36.7% had at least one drink of alcohol on one or more occasions in the past 30 days.
- 20.0% had five or more drinks of alcohol in a row (binge alcohol intake) in the past 30 days.
Underage alcohol use in Connecticut leads to substantial harm due to traffic crashes, violent crime, property crime, unintentional injury, and high-risk sex.
In 2013, underage alcohol use cost the citizens of Connecticut $0.7 billion. These costs include medical care, work loss, and pain and suffering associated with the multiple problems resulting from the use of alcohol by youth.
Price matters, doesn’t it?
Costs of Underage Alcohol Use by Problem, Connecticut, 2013 $
Excluding pain and suffering from these costs, tangible costs of underage drinking including medical care, criminal justice, property damage, and loss of work in Connecticut totaled $214.88 million each year or $1.08 per drink. In contrast, a drink in Connecticut retails for $1.10.
Research on alcohol affordability shows clearly: Higher alcohol prices save lives. As the price of alcohol increases, alcohol-related disease, violence, injuries, hospitalizations and death all decrease. Importantly, the greatest reductions occur in the heaviest alcohol users.
MUP saves lives
MUP effectively prevents death and disease because it is regressive. The greatest health gains caused by MUP occur among alcohol users from the lowest socioeconomic classes.
A study published in The Lancet in 2014 determined this effect is nearly nine times greater among the poorest, compared to the richest, classes.