BeerGlass We made the mistake of trying to impose a national prohibition against alcoholic beverage once already in our history. However, we seem to be doomed to continually repeat our mistakes over and over since our lawmakers seem to be cursed with a curious inability to learn from history, so maybe it's time to try this failed policy again. Who knows, maybe it could work this time around. Heck, spread enough disinformation and I bet we could push for a prohibition on drinking tap water too.

So why on earth would I propose such a silly thing as banning alcohol? Well, to be honest it's not any more silly than smoking bans. In fact, if you want to look at the facts, banning alcohol would actually make more sense than smoking... But since when do facts mean anything these days? Popular opinion is clearly much more powerful than reality.

I have been looking through all of the various rationales for smoking bans and have recently started a one-man campaign against Wisconsin challenging them on their premise for trying to push a smoking ban on us. Why? Because the facts just don't add up. It would seem that the prevailing underlying argument is simply dislike of smokers; however those personal feelings are masked behind all sorts of "public health" and economic claims. Along with challenging these claims, I decided to do some research of my own - not on smoke, but instead on alcohol.

And truth be told... By applying the same "public health" threat and economic arguments against alcohol, I can't quite figure out why people would push so diligently for smoking bans while allowing the public menace of alcohol to plague our society.

I decided that objectivity was better than actually looking at data from possibly skewed sources, so I looked at the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR's) as they provide some very useful insight that advocacy groups tend to ignore.

So, according to the CDC's report on smoking-related deaths, there were 438,000 annual deaths attributable to smoking. What is much more interesting, however, is the years of potential life lost (YPLL) which came out to be 5.5 million years. That comes out to roughly 12.6 years lost per death.

Looking over to the report on alcohol-related deaths, there were 75,766 annual deaths attributed to alcohol. There were also 2.3 million YPLL, which comes out to 30.4 years lost per death.

So what does that tell us? It tells us that, on average, alcohol kills more young people. Even more interesting was the fact that the number of deaths resulting from - let's call it passive drinking - is at least equal to, if not greater than - the deaths attributed to passive smoking. So, in other words, there were more "innocent" people killed in accidents and violent acts related to alcohol than people who supposedly died as a result of secondhand smoke.

But wait! It's doesn't stop there. This just covers alcohol-related deaths. What if we factor in other crimes?

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, of the roughly 1 million violent crimes (murder, rape and sexual assault, robbery, and assault) committed in 2002, 30% (300,000) involved an offender who had been drinking. If we take out of that the 5,963 homicides as reported by the CDC, that still leaves 294,037 violent crimes that didn't result in a death. This isn't even taking into account property crimes.

According to the California ADP, nationally there were over 300,000 injuries from alcohol-related collisions and there were more than 1.5 million DUI arrests.

And cost? According to an outstanding comprehensive report from "Streetdrugs University" (a group of educators specializing in drug and alcohol training):

  • Lost earnings: $69.2 billion, of which 30%-35% ($20.76-$24.22 billion) is passed along to the government.
  • Social Welfare: $693 million, or 3%-4% of total government welfare administration.
  • Motor Vehicle Crashes: $13.6 billion including:
    • $3.8 billion in roadway damage shouldered by state a local government
    • $3.1 billion in insurance administration
    • $3.8 billion in automobile damages
    • $2.9 billion in legal and court costs, of which $580 million was shouldered by state and local government
  • Crime Losses: $1 billion including $427 million in property crime
  • Incarceration Costs: $2.8 billion (140,000 incarcerations * $20,000/year incarceration cost) plus an assumed loss of $1.68 billion in lost tax revenue (140,000 incarcerations * estimated  potential $12,000 tax loss)

And according to the Marin Institute, annual health care expenditures for alcohol-related problems total $22.5 billion. According to Wikipedia, 27% of the population is on public health care and 15.8% is uninsured. By those numbers, we can estimate that the public absorbs approximately $9.63 billion of alcohol-related health costs.

To bring this all into perspective, going back to the Marin Institute and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the estimated aggregate annual cost of alcohol is $175.9 billion compared to $137 billion for smokers. I'll spare you the math and tell you that it's a difference of $38.9 billion.

So with all of this information in mind, why not ban alcohol? The economic cost is significant, the non-drinking deaths associated with alcohol is significant, the amount of crime associated with alcohol is massive...

If we were to take the same standards applied to smoking and apply them to alcohol, we should have banned alcohol without a second thought. Not only is the public burden significant, but the burden of evidence is much stronger when it comes to alcohol as opposed to smoking.

As a public menace, alcohol far and away outweighs smoking - yet smoking is under siege while alcohol is still acceptable. Why is this? What is it about smoking that drives people into such a fury and drives them to force excessive government control upon us (prohibition come to mind?) without giving it a second thought? After all, the same people pushing for the abolition of tobacco are more likely to be killed in an alcohol-related incident than by secondhand smoke.

Just some food for thought. And I hope people think about this.

Full disclosure: I do not advocate for a ban on alcohol nor a ban on smoking. I am also a non-smoker who believes in rights and freedom. I understand that smoking and drinking are not healthy activities, but I honor a person's right to choice and a private business owner's right to allow drinking or smoking on their property.

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance