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Government receives $107 million from underage drinkers
Thursday, 13 November 2008The report, written with lead author Christopher Doran, and Anthony Shakeshaft of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, and Dennis Petrie from the University of Dundee, shows that the half a million adolescents (aged between 12 and 17 years) surveyed consumed about 175 million standard alcoholic drinks in 2005.
Males aged 12-15 drank an estimated 40.5 million drinks on their own, with girls in that age group consuming around 28 million standard drinks in the same year.
The total revenue generated by the consumption of these beverages was estimated to be $218 million, almost half of which -- $107 million – was received in by the government as taxation revenue. This equates to about $212 in tax from each adolescent drinker each year.
The report, published in the International Journal of Addictive Behaviours, is the first-ever study to calculate the profits governments make from underage drinking.
Dr Doran said the figures were likely to be larger in reality.
"Our estimates are doubly conservative … because we assumed that adolescents consumed alcohol at the cheapest possible price. It is more likely that adolescents spend more on alcohol if they do not purchase alcohol in bulk, but also because they may occasionally buy more expensive items, such as premium beer or bottled wine," Dr Doran said.
The report found that there was a rise in the consumption of alcopops, especially among girls, with an accompanying increase in revenue.
"By 2005, 51% of males and 78% of females drank pre-mixed spirits on last occasion of risky drinking," the report stated.
But despite the findings, the study did not endorse the Government's 70% increase in the taxes on alcopops introduced this year, saying that while it was right to focus on teenage consumption patterns, it did not extend to all types of alcohol and many would simply substitute hard spirits.
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