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Vital City | The Failures of Alcohol Regulation

vitalcitynyc.org · 1,601 words · saved by 1 readers

The United States has an alcohol problem. On average, from 2015 to 2019, the nation lost 140,000 lives per year to alcohol. Despite growing legalization of cannabis, alcohol continues as the No. 1 drug among high school students. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, alcohol was annually killing close to 4,000 persons under 21. And during the pandemic, the problem got worse: Indications are that people drank more, and the death toll became even greater. Many people think of just two harms when it comes to alcohol: addiction and drunk driving. But the latter causes fewer than 10% of alcohol deaths among adults; poisonings, liver disease and alcohol-attributable heart disease and stroke kill far more people. The last available estimate of the former, or severe alcohol use disorder, dates from 2009 to 2011, when just 3.5% of the population qualified for that diagnosis. In contrast, 21.7% of the population age 12 and above, or 61.2 million people, say they binged on alcohol in the past 30 days.

Increasing product availability comes with real costs. The United States has an alcohol problem. On average, from 2015 to 2019, the nation lost 140,000 lives per year to alcohol. Despite growing legalization of cannabis, alcohol continues as the No. 1 drug among high school students. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, alcohol was annually killing close to 4,000 persons under 21. And during the pandemic, the problem got worse: Indications are that people drank more, and the death toll became even greater. Many people think of just two harms when it comes to alcohol: addiction and drunk driving. Bu

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