The forward-thinking, life-saving Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board
After Sweden went the other way - reverting from commercial beer sales to a state-controlled system - alcohol-related hospitalizations, suicides, and motor vehicle crashes all declined.
The forward-thinking, life-saving Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board
Jonathan Purtle, Doctoral candidate in public health. Works at Drexel's Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice
By Jonathan Purtle
Getting booze in Pennsylvania is a hassle. You can’t buy it at the supermarket. If you want beer, you can’t buy less than a case from the distributor. If it’s wine or liquor you desire, you have to go to a separate store entirely — often to be met with high prices and long lines. Most states don’t operate this way but Pennsylvania has since 1933, when the heavy-handed, state-run system was established to suppress alcohol consumption in the wake of the 21st Amendment and prohibition reform.
Irksome as the current system is, and illogical as it may seem, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (aka “state stores”) might be a public health blessing in disguise—something that state lawmakers should consider as they contemplate the recent proposal by House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) to privatize and revamp the state’s alcohol control system.
Earlier this year, the effects of privatizing alcohol sales were assessed by the Community Preventive Services Task Force — an independent body whose members, appointed by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are charged with making evidence-based recommendations about what programs and policies keep people healthy. The task force, which was not focusing on any particular state, reviewed the results of 17 studies. It recommended against the privatization of alcohol sales based on the “strong evidence that privatization results in increased per capita alcohol consumption, a well-established proxy for excessive consumption.” In most states that would mean a controversial and politically difficult reversal of current policy. Pennsylvania is ahead of the curve.
The task force’s review, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that privatization resulted in a median increase in alcohol sales of 44 percent after municipalities underwent privatization. One of the studies that was included, an exhaustive analysis of drinking policies in Nordic countries, found that alcohol-related hospitalizations, suicides, and motor vehicle crashes all declined after Sweden reverted back to a state-controlled system of retail beer sales.
Excessive alcohol consumption is responsible for approximately 79,000 deaths annually in the United States and costs the nation an estimated $223.5 billion in lost productivity, health care, and criminal justice costs — with state governments bearing around $53.5 billion of the financial burden. These figures don’t even begin to account for the social costs of excessive alcohol consumption among children and families.
Turzai has estimated that his proposal would generate $1.9 billion in state revenue. Others say it would bring in less. Either way, would it be sufficient to counter the public health costs of privatization?
As Gifford Pinchot, who is best known as the father of American conservation, said while serving as governor of Pennsylvania in 1933, the state’s alcohol control system was designed to "discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible.” While the current system wasn’t informed by the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, it is aligned with them.
From a public health perspective, Pennsylvania has a good thing going — and shouldn’t throw it away as a short-term solution to our fiscal woes.
Read more about The Public's Health.
I do not drink alcohol and fully support privatization. The state should not be in the beverage retailing business. That is not the role of government.
The studies listed here are crud. Based on the push of the article and in theory, the government should drastically raise taxation on alcohol products because it would reduce consumption, correct??? It is not the role of government to dictate alcohol consumption levels of free citizens. If a citizen wishes to consumer alcohol, that is their business...not the governments.
The state store system is 80 years out of date and should be privatized. More competition always leads to lower prices, more assortment and convenience...and folks would not longer need to cross the border. Fees & taxation will continue to fill the state coffers.
Privatize this thing already.— kelprod2
How log is the only state in the country perhaps the world let these awful state leaches run our booze sale.- Only state in the country? False. — TAI12
Comment removed.- Jon -- are you from a socialist country or just an american who doesn't understand freedom and free enterprise?— TripleCap
- You could say this argument about almost anything that could possibly hurt you. I'll bet reducing the number of cars on the road by half would lesson the amounts of accidents. If you reduce the number of swimming pools I bet there would be less drownings. What a rediculous argument.— neddyflanders
- If you're going to make "rediculous" statements, how about you check your spelling of ridiculous first. — TAI12
- Why privatize a system that has kept communities safe, provides excellent service, selection, prices and 5,000 family sustaining jobs? Why? Kelprod2--Take a look at what is happening in Washington and you'll see that privatizing our system will actually RAISE taxes on our alcohol. This is a tax bill, plain and simple. Washington has also proven selection will in fact DECREASE and it is in WASHINGTON that folks are now "crossing the border" into Oregon for their beverages: http://www.kvewtv.com/article/2012/jun/07/wa-residents-go-across-state-line-buy-liquor/— TAI12
- I respectfully disagree with your argument.
To begin with there's no comparison between the State of Washington and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania - the left side of the U.S. simply ain't the right side when it comes to culture, industry and social structure.
Below is an excerpt from a posting prior to Washington's privatizing liquor sales - the arguments and facts apply equally well to Pennsylvania's situation at the moment:
"1) The Liquor Control Board has a conflict of interest selling liquor while also policing both its own stores and private sector beer/wine retailers. As it turns out, the LCB systematically overstates its own effectiveness at denying purchases by minors, while understating the effectiveness of the private sector. Go figure.
2) Not only are many private sector retailers more responsible and compliant with liquor laws than state system stores, they have more of an incentive to ensure compliance. When private sector retailers are caught in violation, they can and do get their licenses suspended or revoked. That costs. State stores keep selling product no matter how many violations they rack up.
3) While spending ever more money on merchandising in the last few years, the LCB's licensing and enforcement budget has remained constant (in nominal dollars, that is. It's declined if adjusted for population growth and inflation).
4) The LCB has asserted, and some independent research confirms, that increasing the frequency of compliance checks is associated with a reduction in violations. Nevertheless, the LCB has dramatically cut back on compliance checks in the private sector in recent years. The rate of sales to minors has crept up slightly.
5) Ultimately, it's the measurable outcomes that matter. U.S. government data show, for example, that Washington's rates of underage drinking and DWI traffic fatalities are significantly worse than the national average, and worse than the average state with private sector liquor sales..." - 1)The State Police Bureau of Liquor enforcement has taken care of the liquor laws for about twenty years
2)The Plcb employs staff that make a living wage. That is incentive enough. Minimum wage convenience store clerks have none. The chain owners don't spend much time at the register.
3)The STATE POLICE enforcement division has made the same request for funding in recent years and the Plcb has fulfilled it.
4) Again you're criticism is directed to the PSP. The only change privatization makes is to strip the enforcement funding and drop liquor control in the lap of local police dept. as an unfunded mandate.
5)DUI,binge, and underage drinkers prefer beer as their drug of choice at about a 70% clip. Beer is already private everywhere. Maybe that's why they prefer it.— JohnRz - Wow. How many ways can I point out that you are utterly wrong or misguided in your statements. Do you work for the LCB? There is absolutely no evidence that the LCB keeps communities safe. If you have ever been an LCB customer you will have experienced spotty service - sometimes good but more frequently bad. Selection? Don't make me laugh. The claim of excellent prices will be refuted with one visit to Total Wine & More in Delaware. — Glider2001
- I love how capitalism (and that rare bird the free market) gets conflated with democracy. Our democracy generally prefers a free market system, but with many exceptions. Our economy should serve our democratic political system, not the other way around. The Adam Smith's in our GOPs seem to have it backwards in this reform proposal, and it is not because of free market ideology, but because state pols are in bed with the crazy beer distribution market in our state. Why not liberalize the sale of beer and wine and keep hard liquor as a state distributed monopoly? Other states have made this compromise. Aside from the free market nut jobs, the only real complaints about the current system is access to beer at the supermarket (and costly six packs) and lack of selection of wine. Fix that part, but keep hard liquor a state sold product. But that would anger our state-sanctioned monopoly that is the beer distribution system in PA.— bobcitydoc
- Let,s establish the state store speciaized in selling Dairy Products MILK Butter and Cheese.. too..following your logic— Ubercatholic
- Comment removed.
- The state has no business being in the liquor business— jonline
For Inquirer.com. Portions of this blog may also be found in the Inquirer's Sunday Health Section
