A serious public health crisis, as evidenced by the U.S. Surgeon General's national "Call to Action" to prevent underage drinking, medical science confirms that alcohol use by teens poses a grave risk of serious health damage. Among other things, we now know this includes damage to the brain, heart, liver, lungs, pancreas, circulatory system, genetic makeup and other short and long-term health consequences. Alcohol poisonings here are at record levels.
Most health experts agree that alcohol use is the most serious health problem facing teens today. Former Surgeon General Kenneth Moritsugu, observed simply, "We can no longer ignore what alcohol is doing to our children."
But little is said about the financial costs associated with misuse of alcohol, a dependence-producing drug. While some ignore alcohol's health threat, they can't avoid its negative financial consequences.
Unfortunately, aside from humanitarian concern, ignoring the abuse of alcohol, regardless of user age, does not alter the reality that every adult citizen, drinker and non-drinker, parent and non-parent, is impacted financially.
To begin with, current research finds that underage drinking costs North Carolinians approximately $1.4 billion annually. This includes costs associated with health care, fetal alcohol syndrome, poisonings, crime, and other negative impacts associated with teen drinking.
The N.C. Institute of Medicine found that alcohol and other drugs (though mostly alcohol) costs our state economy $12.4 billion annually. The World Health Organization conservatively estimates that alcohol abuse costs the nation more than $200 billion annually.
Not surprising -- after all, consider the costs of alcohol-related health care, law enforcement, social welfare, treatment, property damage, lost workplace productivity, and the many other negative consequences associated with its use. Arguably, no legally sold product imposes a greater financial or societal burden.
To offset these costs, we collect approximately $212 million annually in state taxes from the sale of alcohol products, representing only a small fraction of the resultant financial damage. Unfortunately, most of these unmet staggering costs are passed along to the rest of us in the form of taxes and other assessments. If you pay taxes here, you are paying for the actions, consequences and societal measures necessary to control those who abuse alcohol products.
Our General Assembly must do more to lessen alcohol's financial stranglehold upon residents, placing that burden where it rightly belongs -- on the alcohol industry. This industry, by state license, profits enormously from the sale of its products, and, like tobacco, it should be held accountable for the societal harm its products cause.
Our blissful ignorance of the health and financial harm from alcohol use has only made it more damaging to all North Carolinians, as residents are forced to underwrite industry profitability. Increasing alcohol taxes to reduce this unjustified financial burden is essential.
With a national focus on health care, personal and financial, it's, also, the right thing to do.
Ronald E. Bogle is a retired Superior Court judge and works with the Coalition for Alcohol and Drug Free Teenagers.
