I usually harp on the unfunded costs that the unnecessary beverage alcohol industry shifts to responsible drivers because of the tremendous costs to drivers and society resulting from drunken and impaired driving.
But, there is another perhaps less known cost of the irresponsible alcohol industry and the failure of our governments to sufficiently tax alcohol to cover the unnessary cost. That was highlighted on PBS NewsHour this evening November 27, 2012. Jon Cohen of SCIENCE magazine presented information on your HIV and AIDS rates. A few words from the PBS transcript below:
HARI SREENIVASAN: Is there a level or a factor of invincibility, where the young don't feel like they are threatened by all of the things? I mean, as you sort of slide up that ladder and go out of the teenager and into the 18-to-25-year-olds, you see pretty low rates as well.
JON COHEN: Well, if you look at the risk factors, it's all pretty obvious. It's alcohol.
So, we all know that, when kids start drinking, they don't control their alcohol use. And when you don't control your alcohol use, you're going to take risks you otherwise wouldn't take.
Elsewhere in the transcript there is information on the cost of a lifetime of medical care for young people infected with HIV and AIDS.
HARI SREENIVASAN:But one of the things that was interesting to me in this report that said that these folks that are infected so young could cost the system $400,000, a cost that all of us are bearing in some ways.
Read the whole TRANSCRIPT PBS NEWSHOUR YOUTH HIV RATES
So, you now know another cost that the liquor industry scum dump onto all of us and another kind of miisery their product causes. The mythology that Alcohol prohibition did not work despite evidence that it did, is so pervasive in the public mind that prohibition is not a feasible alternative.
BUT, taxing alcohol sales to a level that those taxes cover the unnecessary (ie ALL) of the social, governmental, health, and economic costs of those sales is possible.
The hypocrites and alcohol industry sots and sops we have in our SD legislature and in the US Congress are looking for revenue sources. Much increased alcohol tax is the place to start. It is fair to all responsible US citizens and socially and politically appropriate.
*** Stay tuned and Drive Sober like a good neighbor---Doug Wiken
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