Here’s why making alcohol more expensive won’t stop people from drinking it

When the budget gets released each year, two frustrations are guaranteed: increased taxes are going to make it more expensive for me to drink, and for my car to drink. It’s something many of us lament and for the smokers, it gets even worse. Imagine the surprise when the South African Alcohol Policy Alliance took to the streets to demand an increase in alcohol taxes.

It could only be marginally overshadowed by the surprise that there exists an organisation called the South African Alcohol Policy Alliance. The core of their message seems reasonable and well-intended; alcohol abuse has many social ills that stem from it and taxing it harder will prevent its abuse. Seems simple enough, right?

Unfortunately not. You don’t even need to go as far back as the prohibition era. Remember when we had lockdown and a jacked-up demand for pineapples puzzled shopkeepers?

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Have you seen the number of illicit cigarettes on the market because the real ones are just priced out of many budgets? It’s not like making the stuff people want more expensive stops them from abusing it. Cars are pretty expensive and people make a good habit of crashing those.

One must appreciate the desperation though. There are many communities that suffer desperately from alcohol related issues and making drinking more expensive seems to be a knee-jerk answer which may have even worse effects. If for example, your budget could stretch for one night of drinking a week, and suddenly that drops to a month – there’s no chance you’re going to take it easy one that night if you’re a seasoned drinker.

It’s true, even if just from an anecdotal perspective, that many breadwinners spend excessive amounts of disposable income drinking. Perhaps the placard claiming that beer is cheaper than bread would be ill-advised in line with that but the other complaints ring true in several communities; drunk people come home and beat their spouses, shebeens operate 24/7 and some outlets are located precariously close to schools. Beyond that, it’s ridiculously easy to get alcohol as a minor and so much of these issues are concentrated in poorer communities.

That’s exactly the issue; people are already poor and making poor decisions on spending on alcohol. It’s not like making the stuff more expensive is going to stop them. If it did, it’s more likely that they’ll find a different (likely illicit) source.

Just look at what happened to smokers. Decreasing alcohol consumption is a noble cause. Doing it by making alcohol more expensive doesn’t strike as an effective way of doing so and could have even worse effects.

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