Boost booze tax, save lives

Hiking excise tax on alcohol could save lives on the country’s roads, university researchers say.

A study from staff at University of Otago, Wellington, claimed that boosting the tax by 15 cents per standard drink would reduce alcohol sales by 4.3 per cent within 12 months.

That would lead to a fall in alcoholrelated injuries and deaths from road transport crashes, the study said.

The researchers used economic modelling to calculate the effect of a one-off rise in alcohol taxes on sales of beer, cider, wine, spirits and readyto-drink products.

Professor Nick Wilson said highrisk drinking had risen significantly in New Zealand in recent years.

“Currently, around four out of five adults drink alcohol and around one in five of all drinkers consume hazardous quantities of alcohol.

“Road traffic crashes attributable to alcohol are primarily associated with this high-risk hazardous binge drinking behaviour.”

The research, published in the international journal Injury Prevention, suggested reducing alcohol consumption through such a tax increase would result in 110 fewer deaths from traffic crashes and cut the cost of treating crash victims by $3.6 million.

Study lead author Dr Linda Cobiac said the fall in healthcare costs were dwarfed by an estimated $240m drop in costs of other social harms.

“These are from lost production costs as a result of temporary disability, legal and court proceedings and vehicle damage,” she said.

That was not including the reduction in other alcohol-related problems such as cancer, liver disease, violence and child neglect.

Raising the tax by 15c would bring NZ into line with Britain and Australia.