“For the most part, it has to do with lost productivity at work, which accounts for 72% of the economic impact; presumably this is mainly attributed to employees with hangovers and businessmen trying to resurrect the three-martini lunches of old.”

    So the authors of your study have concluded that 72% of $230 billion EACH YEAR is due to lost productivity at work?
      Come on, Mr. Notrouble, how could they possibly calculate that? The number is preposterous on its face. Think of all the assumptions you would have to do to translate drinking on or before the job into an economic number.

    I’ll buy the DUI and criminal justice system and health care costs but that is as far as we go. And the solution here is obviously not to increase the cost of alcohol but to use other measures such as technology – those ignition systems with a breath o meter should be mandatory in all vehicles. Not much we can do about the health care costs except make sure public money is not available to pay for alcohol-caused diseases.

It's built into us.  Trying to legislate it will always fail, whether it's our drinking, our drug use, sex, eating, driving or whatever.  You can never successfully legislate/regulate human behavior to make it conform to a societal norm.  It is a waste of time and money.  In fact, everyone picks and chooses which forms of human behavior they think should be regulated.  It's called hypocrisy. Willy wants pot smoking to be unregulated.  I agree.  Others think we should regulate what kind of cars people drive or provide incentives for them to eat "healthy" food.  All of it is stupid because it goes against human nature.

Henry Hazlitt (hardly a lefty economist) said that most miscalculations in economics comes from failing to look at the flip side of the coin.

Booze does have related costs that aren't factored into the price (such as addiction and drunk drivers killing people), but booze also has it's benefits. There's a reason why bummed out people go to a bar and drink alone. It's therapeutic.

I personally would be very happy if booze became more expensive. It would make the booze I make more economically viable to sell. As it is, I just make my hooch for myself, family, and friends.

and let as many mexican nationals who want to come to this country as immigrant workers do so. let them get health care in our system. pay for it from the dirty chrony corporate money that all politician dip into. and put interest caps on banks 9% max on any credit cards. and repeal the last bankrupcy laws, put that shit back the way it was. listen to buffet and tax the shit out of every rich individual to pay for this country. the poor and middle class sacrifice the lives of their children in war. that's plenty. and reverse every thing dick nixon did as he was the most evil bastard to reach presidency. end the dea. put all drugs back into the hands of the fda - all men are imperfect as is all government, but that is just insanity. end mandatory prison sentences. disband the criminal graduate school system we call prisons. remove the electorial college. make a constitutional admentment that no corporate of business entity can ever have rights equal a person. end lobbying. period. replace high school with general school which includes 2 years of college or techical school targeted to age 19. reinstate the draft at 19 or when out of general school or if drop out. male and female. draft for 2 years, either military, public works or civil service. create new minumum salary levels for teachers. end tenure. require performance based testing. cut school administation increase teaching staff. this is the richest nation in the world. near free health care is a possibility. dissasemble or heavily regulate health insurance companies. free market no business is peoples health. tort reform is only the beginning. end the current concept of intellectual property. end reciprosity laws and federal oversight of states actions by controling funding. force states to complete against one another for residents like companies do for customers. end factory farming of animals. end goverment subsidy that pay farmers not to grow. raise federal minimum wage to 11.oo per hour change full time status to 34 hrs a week. abolish the IRS. end income tax and don't replace it with anything. nothing at all. just let the chips fall where they may