Matt Zeitlin

Jonah Lehrer notes a study showing that consumption of small amounts of alcohol is associated with more exercising and notes that “it’s yet another piece of evidence suggesting that booze, at least when consumed in moderation, isn’t a public health threat.”Why, then do”most states have a sin tax on alcohol – a drink that seems to protect the heart, prevent dementia, raise levels of good HDL cholesterol and makes us go jogging.”

Lehrer is being pretty fishy here. For one, all the evidence about alcohol consumption being associated with health concern consuming relatively mild amounts of alchol. A sin tax, of, say, 20 cents per can of beer (or equivalent amount of alchol in wine, liquor etc) won’t affect the mild drinkers that much. Instead, pace Mark Kleiman, a sin tax will reduce the amount of alcohol consumption among people who drink a lot. And the benefits of such a tax would be considerable. Kleiman estimates that such a tax “would reduce the assault rate by at least 5%, and maybe as much as 20%.” Also, it wouldn’t do much to tax moderate drinkers. In a review of Philip Cook’s book, Paying the Tab, Kleiman aruges that a doubled alcohol tax “would mean a tax increase of less that $100 a year” for someone who had two drinks a day.

What’s somewhat distressing about Lehrer’s misinformation regarding alcohol taxes is that I was able to pull up actual numbers about the incidence and effects of alcohol taxes in about 30 seconds of googling. This stuff isn’t hard.