How We All Pay for Alcohol Consumption
Drinking is expensive. If you do it or did it, you know that. If you don't imbibe, you're paying a price anyway. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that excessive alcohol consumption costs the U.S. about $250 billion a year, mainly due to losses in workplace productivity, health care expenses, criminal justice costs, motor vehicle crashes, and property damage. ( https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/data-stats.htm#economicCosts ) If you are a binge drinker (four or more drinks per occasion for women, five or more for men) you were responsible for 77% of the cost of drinking alcohol. Whether you drink or not, federal, state, and local taxpayers got stuck with $2 of every $5 of those economic costs. The CDC has the costs of intoxication broken down by state, if you're interested. States where I lived or have many Facebook friends include Kentucky (cost per capita $736), Pennsylvania ($751), Idaho ($726), Washington ($863), California ($940), Ohio ($739), Texas ($748), and...