The Alcohol Tax, a solution for funding...

The alcohol tax is a logical solution for many reasons.

-The alcohol tax would increase a mere dime per drink in the state of Maryland, and yet raise revenues to $214 million. All of these extra returns will enable the backing for funds that polls prove the community supports. Polls prove that Marylanders would not mind paying the extra dime if they knew it went towards helping people with illnesses and disabilities; and these specific returns would go towards the Developmental Disabilities Support Fund, the Addiction Treatment and Prevention Fund, Mental health Care Fund, and the Maryland Medicaid Trust Fund, to fund health care coverage for childless adults. The existing tax (12.75% of the total revenue) will still go to the General Fund (The Lorraine Sheehan Health and Community Services Act of 2010 fact sheet) (Washington Post) (Baltimore Sun).

-After engaging in more than a hundred studies, examining the effect of alcohol taxes on drinking habits and public health, David H. Jernigan and Hugh Waters of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found they had yielded intriguing results. What they discovered would support any statement that claims a higher tax on alcohol will cut the consumption of liquor (by five percent at least) while at the same time yielding more tax revenue, effectively saving lives by decreasing irresponsible behavior, providing jobs, and possibly helping those with disabilities through funding from that extra revenue (Washington Post).

-7,470 violent crimes per year and 1,278 deaths per year are caused by alcohol use in Maryland. The alcohol tax increase “would avert 15,000 cases of alcohol abuse, 316 assaults, 67 incidents of severe violence against children, and 37 premature deaths every year.” It would also “save $249 million in healthcare costs,…and create and preserve jobs in crucial sectors of healthcare and other state services.” The tax increase would also “reduce drinking among young people and heavy drinkers. One out of four Maryland high school students binge drinks. Alcohol causes one out of three deaths among young people in Maryland ages 15 to 20” (The Lorraine Sheehan Health and Community Services Act of 2010 fact sheet).

-Not only will families with disabled individuals benefit due to the funding that will effectually be provided, but also hundreds of others, among them government officials and the rest of the public, whose lives may be endangered by alcohol or who are simply in need of a job.

--Ashley L.