After nearly 80 years of state-controlled liquor sales, Virginians are on the verge of tasting booze not tainted by the hands of Uncle Sam. And thank goodness. The idea of having low alcohol-related death rates means nothing when there are millions to be made by the sale of the commonwealth’s liquor stores. God bless capitalism.
In a Sept. 13, 2010 press release, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli stated that “Virginians who are concerned that alcohol-related problems, such as under-aged drinking and drunk driving fatalities, will increase under privatization, they can be assured that the research has shown there is no greater incidence of alcohol-related problems in states with private ownership of liquor stores than in states with government ownership.”
Cuccinelli’s “research” reference is a report drafted by the Virginia Institute for Public Policy – a conservative think tank. In the report, objectively referred to as “Impaired Judgement: The Failure of Control States to Reduce Alcohol-Related Problems,” authors and economists Donald J. Boudreaux, PhD, and Julia Williams concluded that “the alleged health benefits of government-spirits monopolies are illusory,” and that “detailed regression analysis using data from all 50 states and D.C. finds no statistically significant relationship between the rates of drunk-driving fatalities in control states and such fatalities in license states.”
Gov. Bob McDonnell is certainly taking this information and running with it. At at time when state revenues are falling and unemployment is rising, the governor’s proposal to generate $500 million from the sale of the state’s liquor stores to fund transportation projects in the commonwealth seems a win-win. Jobs will be created as retail locations expand their staff to handle the new inventory, and liquor stores currently operated by g-men will turn over to Joe the (drunk) plumber.
Our fledgling Virginia Department of Transportation will get a much needed injection of capital so that we won’t have to weave around potholes on I-64 anymore. After all, $500 million represents a hefty 15 percent addition to VDOT’s FY 2011 budget of $3.3 billion. Annual liquor sales from ABC stores in 2009 only generated $111.7 million, and last time I counted to the millions, I remember arriving to 111 million waaaaay before I got to 500 million. So we’re making out like bandits, right?
But wait. I forgot. The $500 million is a one time deal. But surely the revision of Virginia’s Alcoholic Beverage Control regulations will ensure an adequate tax on spirits, as it currently taxes wine and beer which generate roughly $150 million in annual tax revenue for the state. Privatizing and taxing liquor sales would generate revenue, so the revenue question could be moot.
But what about the rock-solid data provided by the objective and agenga-free Virginia Institute for Public Policy? Who cares that the VIPP board of directors is strewn with die-hard conservatives with affiliation to all sorts of partisan organizations, like the Cato Institute, Radio America and Oliver North? It doesn’t matter, not when you’re talking about privatization. Privatization is always the way to go, look how well it’s worked in the health insurance industry. Every American has inexpensive health care and nobody experiences double-digit percentage increases in their annual health insurance costs. Give the lion the jungle and she will find her feast. Duh!
Boudreaux and Williams assert that there is no difference in alcohol-related health risks between the 18 states that currently control liquor sales verses the rest of the country that simply tax it. Their report is a testament to their strenuous and educated effort to illuminate this controversial issue with unbiased representation. It doesn’t matter that states which only tax liquor sales experience 79 more alcohol related deaths out of 10,000 auto fatalities than states which control sales. It’s only 79 more people dead. It’s not statistically significant.
Of course when you reduce the equation, the numbers do seem insignificant as Boudreaux and Williams are quick to point out:
What about drunk-driving fatalities? Here, too, there is no statistically significant relationship between control states and license states. The average annual number of drunk-driving fatalities for control states was 31.06 per 100 driving fatalities (or 31.06 percent of motor vehicle fatalities were alcohol related in control states) in 2008; the average annual number of drunk-driving fatalities for license states in 2008 was 31.85. The national average was 31.57 per 100 driving fatalities.
Now, I’m no mathematician, but I know a little about decimals. I also know that people are not decimal points. In 2008, drunk drivers accounted for 31.85 percent of auto fatalities in states that did not regulate liquor sales. But in the interest of human decency, let’s say that 3,185 deaths out of 10,000 auto fatalities were alcohol related in “free market” states. It doesn’t really matter that Boudreaux and Williams forgot to mention that these numbers are for alcohol-related fatalities, and not alcohol-impaired fatalities which are actually a greater percentage of driving fatalities. But that information wouldn’t support the privatization argument, so bury that data!
Now let’s look at the control states, and let’s see if we can use the same data Boudreaux and Williams used to put real numbers in a real context. In 2008, there were 84.5 million people living in the 18 states that control liquor sales. According to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, there were 9,754 auto fatalities in 2008 in those eighteen states, and of those fatalities, 3,029 were alcohol-related. But if alcohol was not state controlled, those numbers could have increased to 3,107 people, meaning an additional 78 people could have died in those 18 states.
But 78 people is statistically insignificant according to Boudreaux and Williams, especially when there’s bucks to be made.
The VPPI report indicated that the United States averages 3,157 alcohol-related deaths per 10,000 auto fatalities. So states that regulate the sale of liquor are lower than both the national average and the average of states that license the sale of liquor to private industry. Strange how the same data can be looked at through two completely different lenses. I just prefer to assume that human beings are better suited as whole numbers rather than fractions, but that could just be my narrow communistic perspective.
The convoluted term “statistically insignificant” refers to the deviation in the actual statistic, which in this case was plus/minus 5 percent, meaning that actual data does not reflect extenuating circumstances and other mitigating factors than can skew the data. So the numbers could be much higher or much lower. But in reality, we know that limiting access limits consumption. Improving access improves consumption. It’s not a scientific survey, it’s common sense. With more hospitals, prices go down and more people are served, right? The more grocery stores we have, the more food that’s available to be purchased, prices go down, and fewer people will go hungry, right? Isn’t that a basic tenant of economics?
But for some reason, the conservative businesspeople on capitol slope think that improving access to alcohol will only benefit the commonwealth because of the much needed jobs that will be generated. Who care that dozens more people could die per year? At least the family and friends of the deceased won’t have to drive so far to purchase their mourning-specific beverage of choice to help them dull the pain of their loss.
Give them games, declares Ceasar. Give them spirits to dull their minds. Entertain them. Keep them fat and happy and you can get away with murder. Fill the Gulf of Mexico with oil and then forget it all with the World Cup.
If the Commonwealth of Virginia is going to privatize its state-run liquor stores, then it’s high time it legalizes medicinal marijuana.
When alcohol prohibition was appealed in 1933, the state established the Liquor Control Committee to “examine and propose a plan for liquor control in the Commonwealth,” and so began our commie takeover of the booze business. Nearly 80 years later we’ve gotten to the point where we want to give the reigns to Joe the (drunk) plumber. Why can’t we start the same process with marijuana, so that 80 years from now we can hand control over to Joe the (high) plumber? Government has no business regulating the sale of drugs anyway.
Oh, wait a minute. What about the Food and Drug Administration? Let’s just get rid of the FDA, too. Pharmaceutical companies always have our best interests at heart. They never sell a drug with a laundry list of side effects that includes death (and if you experience death please be sure to contact your doctor right away).
But let’s be realistic. At least marijuana has documented medical effects. The drug Sativex was recently introduced in Europe and Canada, and its active ingredient is natural THC – the active chemical in marijuana – extracted directly from the cannibis sativa plant and used to treat pain and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. There are more than a dozen medications that use cannabinoid compounds which interact with the same neural receptors as THC. Fourteen states including Washington, D.C. have passed medical marijuana laws, and the FDA does not have a single death claim attributed directly to medicinal use of marijuana, whereas tens of thousands of people have died from other “legal” drugs.
But we’d much rather legalize something synthetic because it’s easier to control and it’s better for business. Criminalizing a natural plant that was here before we walked the earth is an exercise in self-deification, an unforgivable act of hubris that sums up everything that’s wrong with society. Why don’t we make avocados illegal, because they have so much fat? Fat kills people way faster than marijuana, there’s no disputing that fact. Of course, marijuana might make a person more susceptible to consuming fat after a bout with the munchies, but that’s an issue of self-control, not a legal consideration.
Legalize marijuana, tax it and reap the benefits. Especially now that ABC stores are going private. What better time to take advantage of the loosening of the Man’s grip on free enterprise than to introduce a medicinal plant to the marketplace? I’m sure that Phizer and Roche and Bayer and all the big dogs will come out with their heady brand of ganja-liciousness: Weedex. Herbitol. Reefergra.
Philip Morris will have it’s brand, it’s smooth smoking Greenports that will start off as medicinal and 50 years from now there will be a lawsuit against them because they added chemicals to the ganja to ensure maximum addiction. Then they’ll be forced to fund a campaign that tells everyone how bad marijuana is and they’ll begin integrating with other markets and business ventures to clean up their act in the public eye.
Sell them ABC buildings. What are they doing in the government’s hands anyway? Being controlled and regulated? PFF! Whatever. Let the Joes and Joans of the world handle it. The world is already overpopulated, and the more people who die will be good for the mortician business. Long live free market eugenics!
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