I'm thinking something's wrong here.

We all know people who smoke, and if you've not heard about how expensive cigarettes have become yet, you will soon. Cigarette tax rose ridiculously high these last couple years. My question; Why aren't we taxing alcohol as high as were taxing cigarettes? As of January 2011, there is a tax of $4.35 per 20 pack of cigarettes in New York, while beer has only a $0.14 tax.

Let's look at the statistics really quick.

There are an average of 444,000 deaths per year in the US, due to smoking related illnesses.
There are an average of 100,000 alcohol related deaths in the US each year
Both smoking and alcohol, can cause disease and illness.
I'm sure smoking while driving causes a few accidents. I couldn't find anything about it killing anyone though.
45% of all accidents, are alcohol related.
Each year approximately 16,000 are killed in alcohol related crashes.

When you are a smoker, you know that cigarettes are bad for you. It says, on the pack, in plain English, that smoking will kill you and cause birth defects, if smoked by pregnant women. How about we solve it this way, Don't sell cigarettes to pregnant women! Duh! Then the babies won't be harmed. And smokers can take precaution and smoke away from other people. By doing this, they are harming no one, but themselves.

But, when you are under the influence of alcohol, your judgement is impaired. You don't know who you are going to hurt. Drunk drivers, not only hurt themselves, but they usually kill someone innocent, in the process. (And most of the drunk drivers, walk away without a scratch.)

My point is, People who smoke, know that they are hurting themselves, but they can prevent others others from being affected by their habit. People who drink, don't just hurt themselves. When was the last time you heard of cigarettes being the cause of a someone beating on their family? When was the last time you heard of a someone who was distracted by cigarettes, and ran over an innocent bystander? How about the last time you heard of a teenager dying at a party because of cigarettes? Smoking may kill more people, but alcohol hurts more innocent people.

So how does it make sense? Why does the government raise tax so high on cigarettes, and not bat an eye, at alcohol?





http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_do_Americans_spend_on_beer_annually#ixzz1WIzL2C56
http://www.quit-smoking-central.com/smoking-statistics.html
http://www.come-over.to/FAS/alcdeath.html
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/26076.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/245.html
http://dui.lifetips.com/cat/61352/drunk-driving-facts-stats/index.html
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/economics/econ_facts/