Drug and Alcohol Rehabs Blog

Proposed Alcohol Tax Increase to Provided Needed Funding for Treatment

April 8, 2009 on 2:34 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

(exerpt from Bob Curley’s article on Join Together online) -For decades alcohol industry lobbyists have succeeded in derailing most attempts to raise state alcohol taxes, but the lousy economy has many cash-hungry states now considering alcohol-tax increases — in some cases, to help pay for addiction treatment services as well as address budget deficits.

Serious proposals for increasing alcohol taxes are on the table in more than a dozen states, and governors of three trendsetting states — California, New York and Massachusetts — have endorsed higher alcohol taxes as part of their budget proposals.

“There is overwhelming community support for a tax on alcoholic beverages that will be used, in part, to support treatment for those who suffer from the disease of alcoholism and to prevent problem drinking particularly among underage drinkers,” said John Coppola, executive director of the New York State Association of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Providers, which is backing a 10-cent-per-drink tax proposed by Assemblyman Felix Ortiz. “A dime a drink seems like a very small price for saving a life.”

This winter, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger forwarded a plan to increase the state’s alcohol tax and dedicate a portion of the proceeds to addiction programs. A January poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found that raising alcohol taxes was the most popular budget fix among state voters, with 81 percent supporting Schwarzenegger’s call for increasing alcohol taxes by 5 cents per drink.

Similarly, the Oregon Partnership recently released a poll showing that 61 percent of state voters approved of an alcohol tax increase; the group is supporting a plan to increase beer taxes — which have remained at the same rate for 32 years — to raise up to $165 annually million, mostly for addiction treatment and prevention.

Michele Simon, research and policy director of the Marin Institute, a California-based industry watchdog group, said the fact that the state’s Republican governor supported raising alcohol taxes indicates that the GOP’s long-standing blanket opposition to tax increases may be crumbling. “There has been some shift because we’re in such dire straits,” she said. “But the industry is fighting tooth and nail — they’re the only thing keeping us back now.”