The Task Force on Community Preventive Services conducted a systematic review of scientific literature and determined that alcohol consumption is responsive to price.  As price goes up, alcohol consumption goes down. On average, alcohol consumption decreased almost 8% as price increased 10%. As consumption of alcohol decreased, so did alcohol-related harm. Higher alcohol prices were consistent with fewer motor vehicle crashes and fatalities, less alcohol-impaired driving, less violence and fewer deaths.  Some studies showed that youth (both underage and college age youth) were particularly sensitive to price of alcohol.  Higher alcohol prices were associated with less youth drinking.

 Due to this relationship between alcohol, price and related harm, we are very concerned about lowering alcohol prices through the use of manufacturer instantly redeemable coupons.  Based on the analysis of findings from these 73 studies, our fear is that as alcohol price goes down, alcohol consumption will increase as will alcohol-related harm.  To best protect the public, we suggest not allowing manufacturers to issue instantly redeemable coupons.  However, if the ABC wishes to implement this mechanism, we suggest only allowing a 10% reduction in price rather than 50% to mitigate the potential alcohol-related harm.  To minimize the impact of these instantly redeemable coupons we also suggest limiting the method of coupon delivery to print materials (print media or direct mail) and not on the Internet or electronic mail.

Guide to Community Preventive Services. Preventing excessive alcohol consumption: increasing alcohol taxes. www.thecommunityguide.org/alcohol/increasingtaxes.html. Accessed 8/13/2012.