CDC: Heavy Drinking is Expensive for the U.S.

In 2006, which is the most recent data available, the CDC says the median average states spent on alcohol-related matters reached $3 billion dollars.

Those include enforcement of alcohol laws, property damage from DUI crashes and other crimes.

North Dakota spent the least on alcohol-based problems at $420 million.  California topped the list at $32 billion.

Georgia was slightly above average with a little more than $6 billion.

“That translates into about $1.94 per drink.  So, if you take all those costs and you divide them up by all the drinks we would estimate were consumed by Georgians, it’s about $670 per person in Georgia,” says Dr. Robert Brewer, one of the authors of the report.

Binge drinking, defined as five or more drinks for men, and four or more drinks for women, played a major factor.

“Just to put this in some perspective, the costs that we’re estimating here for excessive drinking are really on the same order of the magnitude as the cost of smoking and the cost of Medicaid in many states.  In fact, that’s true for Georgia as well,” says Brewer. 

The report says heavy drinking is linked to roughly 80,000 deaths in the U.S. every year.