Alcohol Taxes Should Be Tripled

S

straightrazor

Bluelighter
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Dec 25, 2013
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amazed by duality
The war on drugs has been a failure. But the war on booze deserves a second chance.

America is rushing headlong toward legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. A growing majority—54 percent as of a Pew survey released just last month—favor legalization, and an even larger majority of millennials (69 percent) feels the same way. Colorado and Washington are the first states to move decisively in this direction, but they won’t be the last. I basically think this is an OK development. Like Mark Kleiman, a public policy professor at UCLA who is my guru on the regulation of controlled substances, I see full commercial legalization as a truly terrible idea, while I think noncommercial legalization, ideally via monopolies owned and operated by state governments, would be an improvement over the status quo. Regardless, marijuana legalization is coming, one way or another.

One thing that is really striking about the new Pew data is that 69 percent of Americans believe, correctly, that alcohol is more harmful to society than marijuana. When asked if alcohol would still be more harmful to society than marijuana if marijuana were just as easy to get a hold of as alcohol is now, 63 percent said that yes, it would be. Most people see marijuana’s relative harmlessness as a reason for us to regulate marijuana as lightly as we regulate alcohol. I see things differently. The fact that alcohol is more harmful to society than marijuana is a reason to regulate alcohol more stringently than we regulate marijuana. In other words, let’s ease up on marijuana Prohibition and ramp up good old-fashioned alcohol Prohibition. More precisely I favor something like what the libertarian journalist Greg Beato calls, and not in a nice way, “Prohibition Lite.”
 
Do you want to deal with the government to get your grass..NO. Is there a reason we should.. NO.

Alcohol taken in large doses causes some of the ugliest, violent, dangerous, and idiotic behavior and consequences. I dont know of two many drugs that cause worse consequences than old alcohol.

Tripling the alcohol tax in america could have dire economic consequences for the hospitality industry. Considering that a large portion of our economy is service oriented this would be really bad. Why don't we address some underlying issues associated with alcohol and improve our lives in general as well. With the younger generation fully on board and looking for great public transportation and not a system based on cars and roads, we should improve and further develop this, thus also attacking a huge problem with booze.. mainly that it leaves you unable to drive, but also hampers the ability to decide not to do this.
 
ban it

anything the straight world & the "powers-that-be" like, I do not lol
 
There is a perfect equilibrium for taxation, and I couldn't tell you where exactly that lies. But, go too far and all the problems of drug prohibition will begin again for alcohol.
 
weekend addiction said:
Tripple alcohol tax and watch how many people realize you can make 100 gallons of wine per adult per household for personal use...
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Yup people have been making wine, liquor, and beer at home for centuries.

I don't drink anymore at all; but my friends that do some of them have made wine or beer.

I think that Cannabis should be decriminalized like it is in Spain where it's legal to smoke or get high on cannabis or hash in your home or in private like a hotel room; but not in public, driving while high is illegal, and selling or buying very large amounts is illegal; but it's legal to grow your own or barter/trade for it, or give it to an adult as a gift.
 
We essentially did this in Canada. It rapes the poor but everyone still seems to drink all the time. The cheapest booze is a 4L box of wine with a valve on a bag of it inside. Second cheapest is a fifth of sherry, 20%. The box of wine is dangerous since you can drink enough to die from it. You might pay $14+ for a decent 6-pack of hoegarden (sp).
 
_DankOpiAmp_ said:
We essentially did this in Canada. It rapes the poor but everyone still seems to drink all the time. The cheapest booze is a 4L box of wine with a valve on a bag of it inside. Second cheapest is a fifth of sherry, 20%. The box of wine is dangerous since you can drink enough to die from it. You might pay $14+ for a decent 6-pack of hoegarden (sp).
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Mmmmm Hoegaarden... /drool

Sorry but I love their white ale.

Edit - But yeah, I paid almost $48 for a 24 pack of it from The Beer Store the last time I bought some - rather pricey. Or is it "pricy"? I always get confused with that word. I must have slept through that English class =D
 
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Alcohol taxes should be hafed. Now, that's a sensible proposition. Don't suppress real businesses that actually employ people and offer goods to society.

Also, and here's a really good idea, tax big macro breweries to death and reduce taxes to micro breweries.

Let old bud drinking bill pay the bill. Sounds like a great idea.
 
sexNcandy said:
Alcohol taxes should be hafed. Now, that's a sensible proposition. Don't suppress real businesses that actually employ people and offer goods to society.
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Do you have any idea how much money the US pays treating alcohol related crime and disease every year? I'm not arguing for the tripling of taxes, but the halving of taxes is an even worse idea. When one cuts taxes on a product it increases the sales of the product the vast majority the time, tax cuts are an incentive to buy. I personally don't feel like we should be giving people incentives to drink poison while also footing the bill for the immense damage in life and gold the product causes.

Excessive Drinking Costs U.S. $223.5 Billion
 
straightrazor said:
Do you have any idea how much money the US pays treating alcohol related crime and disease every year? I'm not arguing for the tripling of taxes, but the halving of taxes is an even worse idea. When one cuts taxes on a product it increases the sales of the product the vast majority the time, tax cuts are an incentive to buy. I personally don't feel like we should be giving people incentives to drink poison while also footing the bill for the immense damage in life and gold the product causes.

Excessive Drinking Costs U.S. $223.5 Billion
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People aren't sheep that need to be taxed into doing the right thing.
 
straightrazor said:
Do you have any idea how much money the US pays treating alcohol related crime and disease every year? I'm not arguing for the tripling of taxes, but the halving of taxes is an even worse idea. When one cuts taxes on a product it increases the sales of the product the vast majority the time, tax cuts are an incentive to buy. I personally don't feel like we should be giving people incentives to drink poison while also footing the bill for the immense damage in life and gold the product causes.

Excessive Drinking Costs U.S. $223.5 Billion
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The costs largely resulted from losses in workplace productivity (72% of the total cost),
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Im so sad alcohol cost the machine so much production and revenue, couldn't be that people who hated their fucking underpaid slave driving jobs got pissed up all the time and didn't give a shit about the companies the worked for to begin with.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, most restaurants try to make alcohol sales account for around 30 percent of their revenue.
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source

Yeah a 300% tax increase would bury the service industry and in our current economy this would be very bad.

"In the United States 70 percent of the workforce works in the service sector;
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source
 
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