Study links booze, taxes to public health

A study out of the University of Florida has concluded that raising taxes on alcohol leads to lower rates of alcohol-related disease, injury, death and crime. The study was released online this week by the American Journal of Public Health in advance of the print edition.

The study found that increasing the average state tax on alcohol (you can see the individual state tax rates on beer, wine and hard liquor here) by a factor of two yielded significant changes in behavior. How significant? It's estimated that it would result in, among other things, a 35% reduction in alcohol-related deaths, a 6% reduction in sexually transmitted diseases and a 1.4% reduction in crime.