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Monday, July 16, 2007

Alcohol Pricing and Public Health in Canada: Issues and Opportunities



While the price of alcoholic beverages has been identified as a major determinant of the extent of alcohol-related problems, alcohol taxes have rarely been used in any systematic way to achieve public health and safety objectives. This paper examines the operation of alcohol taxes in Canada from a health perspective, and identifies a number of opportunities for protecting the health and safety of the population through ‘discerning and purposeful’ reforms of taxation and pricing policies.

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The complexity of current alcohol pricing and taxation systems in Canada creates an excellent opportunity for the implementation of new, more efficient systems in which prices and taxes are used in a “purposeful and discerning manner” in the interests of health and safety, while maintaining the social and economic benefits derived from the responsible production, sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages in Canada.

Read Full Report (PDF)

Source: Tim Stockwell
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