Hike in liquor price accompanied by drop in crime
Researchers focused on cheapest alcohol options, such as strong beer and fortified wine
As the minimum prices for liquor rise in B.C., the rate of violent crimes and alcohol-related traffic violations tend to fall, a new study suggests.
The report, published last week in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, indicates when prices for the cheapest alcohol increased by 10 per cent, B.C. saw an 18.81 per cent drop in drunk-driving-related incidents and a 9.17 per cent decrease in all crimes against people, including offences such as murder, assault and robbery.
Although the study stops short of proving higher alcohol prices caused the declining crime rate, lead author Tim Stockwell said it suggests a strong association between the two trends that adds to a growing body of evidence.
“It’s further support for the value of using alcohol prices as a public policy tool with a view to minimizing harms from alcohol consumption,” said Stockwell, a University of Victoria psychologist and director of the Centre for Addiction Research of B.C.
“It’s the latest in the series of studies finding evidence that cheap alcohol seems to be quite important as one of the causes of a number of harms from drinking, including admissions to hospital for diseases and injuries, deaths, and it’s now apparent in crime data as well.”
He stressed the study didn’t look at raising the prices of all types of alcohol, just the cheapest available options: often things such as the eight per cent beers and certain fortified wines that are the preferred choice of many problem drinkers.
The study was conducted across all 89 local health areas in the province between 2002 and 2010, a time period when the total number of government and private liquor stores rose from 755 to 1,242. In order to weed out some other factors that might contribute to changes in crime rates, the authors corrected for things such as family income, population density and percentages of young people — particularly young men. They also had to adjust for the introduction of B.C.’s tough new drinking and driving regulations in 2010.
The researchers also looked at the density of liquor stores in the province’s towns and cities, but didn’t find any significant correlation with crime rates, apart from non-alcohol-related traffic violations.
But Stockwell cautioned against ruling out availability of liquor as a factor.
“We always find that pricing is more important than physical availability, but both are important,” he said.
Stockwell said there’s been keen interest in their findings in Europe, where a court is now hearing arguments about a minimum alcohol pricing law passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2012.
The Scotch Whisky Association has argued that the policy was in breach of European law.
British Prime Minister David Cameron once championed a similar policy, but later dropped it.
The team of researchers behind the study also included members from the U.S. and the U.K. The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.