(Health.com) — Alcohol abuse is the third leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., and it contributes to countless diseases, car crashes, injuries, and crimes.
How can we solve these thorny problems? Making booze more expensive might be a good start, a new study suggests.
Doubling the current state taxes on alcohol — which would tack on as much as 50 cents to the price of the average six-pack or bottle of wine — could be expected to reduce alcohol-related deaths by 35 percent, fatal car crashes by 11 percent, and the rates of sexually transmitted disease by 6 percent, according to the study.
Higher taxes on booze would also lead to 2 percent less violence and 1.4 percent less crime, the researchers estimate.
Health.com do you have a drinking problem?
“What is surprising is the consistency of the effect across a broad range of health outcomes that kind of don’t have anything to do with each other,” says Alexander C. Wagenaar, Ph.D., the lead researcher and a professor of epidemiology and health outcomes at the University of Florida, in Gainesville.
read more at cnn.com
