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Report: Binge Drinking Costing Americans BILLIONS
By
Jamie Feldmar
Published Oct 17, 2011
Modified Oct 17, 2011
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By
Jamie Feldmar
Published Oct 17, 2011
Modified Oct 17, 2011
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Don't be this guy (Flickr user bigaila)
Hey, you over there in the corner barstool: Have you ever stopped backwashing into that pint glass for long enough to consider how your drinking is affecting the economy? Of course not, neither have we. But do you know who has? The CDC! And they are not happy with what your drinking habit is doing to good taxpaying Americans.
A new report says that excessive alcohol consumption cost the US $224 billion in 2006 (the last year that data was available), with three quarters of the costs coming from binge drinking, aka Your Wednesday Night. Most of the costs come from losses in workplace productivity (72 percent of the total cost), health care expenses for problems caused by excessive drinking (11 percent of the total cost), law enforcement and other criminal justice expenses related to excessive alcohol consumption (9 percent of the total cost), and motor vehicle crash costs from impaired driving (6 percent of the total cost). Researchers estimate that cleaning up your excessive drinking messes costs each taxpayer about $746 a year, and that's not even factoring in the millions spent by FEMA holding every vomiting American's hair.
“This research captures the reality that binge drinking means binge spending and, left unchecked, the burdensome cost of excessive drinking will only go up,” said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden. “Unfortunately the hangover is being passed on to all of us in the workplace and the health and criminal justice systems." Frieden, man, live a little! Here, we'll buy you a drink. Hush now. [via HuffPo]
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