Many health benefits will come from alcohol tax

On Oct. 1, Mat-Su Borough voters will be asked to approve Proposition B-1 to allow a sales tax on alcohol not to exceed 5 percent. A recent poll shows that 54 percent of Mat-Su voters are in favor of this proposition. Why are so many supporting it?

Part of the reason so many local residents are in favor of Prop B-1 is that the money will be used to support emergency services in our borough. It will help secure the funding needed to keep our first responders ready and prepared, and fund emergency medical services to keep pace with our population and address the increase in accidents on our roads.

In addition, the alcohol tax offers many public health benefits, including saving lives. At least three people in Mat-Su will be spared an alcohol-related death every year after the alcohol tax is enacted. Here in Alaska, the 1983 and 2002 alcohol tax increases were respectively followed by a 29 percent decrease statewide in the number of deaths and an 11 percent decrease in deaths.

The alcohol tax can also help save babies. Between the years 2007 and 2009, 1.6 percent of mothers in the Mat-Su drank while pregnant. From 1980 to 2012, 1 percent of babies born in the Mat-Su suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. Alcohol taxes have been found to reduce the incidence of binge drinking during pregnancy. Additionally, research has demonstrated that increases in alcohol taxes reduce not only the probability of both child abuse and severe child abuse, but also the frequency of child abuse.

Alcohol taxes also significantly reduce youth alcohol consumption. In 2010, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation undertook an investigation into the costs of youth alcohol consumption. That year, underage drinking in Alaska resulted in injury costs totaling $21.5 million, $1.7 million worth of treatment for poisonings and psychoses, and an estimated $25.2 million for youth alcohol treatment costs. Alcohol consumption contributes to the three leading causes of death for adolescents — unintentional injuries, homicide and suicide. As such, any amount of alcohol consumption by youth is excessive. Sadly, youth in Alaska in 2009 consumed 17.9 percent of alcohol sold in the state that year.

An ongoing cost of youth alcohol consumption is the risk of youth developing lifelong alcohol dependency. Alcohol use among youth is strongly associated with alcohol abuse in adulthood. Youth who drink before age 15 are five times more likely than youth who wait until 21 to begin drinking to develop alcohol abuse or dependence as adults. As such, unless measures are taken to reduce underage drinking, health-related alcohol costs for many youth will continue into their adulthood.

In 2011, almost 20 percent of Mat-Su adults reported binge drinking during the past month.

The percentage of binge drinking behaviors reported in the Mat-Su has remained constant since 2001. Alcohol dependence and abuse contribute to a wide range of health and social issues such as unintentional injuries, illnesses like liver cirrhosis and gastrointestinal cancers, interpersonal violence and lost productivity. The negative consequences of alcohol abuse and dependence in the Mat-Su impact individuals, families, communities and the borough as a whole.

A number of health care issues, and their corresponding costs, are associated with alcohol abuse. That includes 41,000 days of hospital care attributed to alcohol-related incidents in Alaska in 2010, with an estimated cost of $2,545 per day for care. Alcohol is the third leading root cause of preventable death in the United States, and Alaska’s mortality rates for alcohol are among the highest in the nation. From 2007 to 2009, the Mat-Su chronic liver death rate was 7.4 per 100,000 persons, and the poisoning death rate was 20 per 100,000.

On Oct. 1, Mat-Su voters have the opportunity to do something to not only fund emergency support services and diversify the borough’s tax base, but to begin turning around the devastation caused by excessive alcohol consumption.

A vote of “yes” on ballot Proposition B-1 to enact the alcohol tax is an easy first step in the right direction.

Elizabeth Ripley is executive director

of Mat-Su Health Foundation.