Coalition Seeks 5-Cent Tax on Alcohol Drinks

With alcohol a factor in more than half the injuries that are treated in California’s emergency rooms, a coalition of statewide organizations kicked off an initiative campaign Friday that seeks to make producers and consumers of alcoholic beverages pay the costs, raising their taxes a nickel per drink.

Speaking at one of four press conferences held simultaneously throughout the state, Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman and a host of health care professionals gathered at White Memorial Medical Center in East Los Angeles said they hope to collect 600,000 signatures by May to qualify the initiative for next November’s ballot.

The 5-cent increase per glass of wine, bottle of beer and jigger of hard liquor could raise as much as $800 million a year for California, enough to shore up Los Angeles County’s faltering trauma care network and fund law enforcement, addiction treatment and mental health programs throughout the state, according to its supporters.

“Emergency physicians are the first to see the results of alcohol-related trauma--the people with the broken legs, the gunshot wounds, the car accident victims,” said Dr. Wesley Curry, president of the California branch of the American College of Emergency Physicians, a co-sponsor of the initiative. “And we see them die in the emergency department.”

“This tax,” added Brian D. Johnston, chairman of White Memorial Medical Center’s emergency medicine department, “is to pay for some of the costs of alcohol in our society.”

The tax would be applied to California producers of alcohol as well as wholesalers bringing such beverages into the state, campaign organizers explained. It would amount to a nickel for every 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine, three ounces of fortified wine or one ounce of distilled spirits and would give California its first alcohol tax hike since 1967. How much of the cost would be borne by the consumer would be up to the sellers, sponsors said.

Tax revenue earmarked for Los Angeles County’s trauma care network could pump about $60 million into the troubled system, they said. But health officials cautioned that this tax alone will not solve the whole problem.

“This literally is a Band-Aid approach,” Curry said. “Until the California Legislature comes up with a solution for uncompensated care, we will continue to see hospitals hedge their bets on staying in the system.”