Hacker News Reader

Comment by transpostmeta | Hacker News Reader

My solution: Increase taxes on all alcoholic beverages. Make pharmacies able to sell 20% by volume alcohol mixed with water that is drinkable in non-branded, medical-looking bottles. Addicts with little money can buy that and mix it with fruit juice or whatever, and everyone else buys the expensive real stuff.

View on HN

Alcohol is big business, though. Forcing pricess too high would be the end of most pubs/bars and many restaurants. And we're losing many of them already due to Covid.

If taxes were really high, I suspect that home brewing would be become far more popular, too.

The great experiment aka prohibition in the USA shows how that worked out.

What's too high? Alcohol is heavily taxed in the nordic countries with a single beer costing 10-20 dollars in a bar. A single long-drink can be 20-40 dollars. There are still plenty of bars and people getting drunk. Yes, there is home brewing but it's not what the young kids do to have fun and get drunk.

You can read about the taxation and the effects of a tax cut in this paper from 2018, https://www.alko.fi/INTERSHOP/static/WFS/Alko-OnlineShop-Sit...

This will only create a black market of booze. Brewing, and distilling alcohol, is a fairly easy endeavour. Policies like you've suggested, are why illicit moonshine and poitin exist.

Tax aspect of your post aside

Everclear already exists. Not going to get much cheaper than that w/regards to diluting it in fruit juice or whatever else.

40's also quite affordably exist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com