Study shows that alcohol consumption causes billions in losses to public coffers

A study released this Tuesday (05) by Fiocruz, the institution responsible for research and production of medicines linked to the Ministry of Health, shows that R$ 18.8 billion were spent by public coffers due to alcohol consumption by the population. The study took into account data collected in 2019.

The health sector suffers the greatest losses

According to the study, R$1.1 billion was spent on procedures and care for incidents in hospitals and outpatient clinics due to problems related to alcohol use, which were paid for by the SUS (Unified Health System). The main occurrences reported in this study were traffic accidents, cardiovascular diseases and situations related to violence. Most of these factors affected the male audience.

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_{Consumption of alcoholic beverages (Photo: reproduction/Charly Triballeau/Getty Images Embed)}

The study also points out that R$17.7 billion were disbursed to cover the loss of employee productivity in the job market: absences, sick leave, premature deaths and even early retirements proved to be the main factors.

“International literature is quite rich in demonstrating that the total direct and indirect costs of alcohol to society are in the order of 1% to 3% of countries’ GDP”pointed out Eduardo Nilson, researcher responsible for the study.

Fiocruz does not rule out the possibility of this value being even higher, as not all factors could be included in the data collection.

Selective tax

In July of this year, the Selective Tax was approved by the Chamber of Deputies, an extra tax on products such as soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, among others considered harmful to health or the environment. The tax will cover the production, extraction, marketing and even import of these products.

The proposal was considered positive by many researchers. “When you manage to reduce consumption by 20% without generating loss of revenue, it means reducing 15,000 to 20,000 deaths per year in Brazil”said the director of Vital Strategies, an organization that develops public health strategies, Pedro de Paula.

Experts point to a possible scenario in which such products will also have their advertising reduced, just as happened with cigarettes.

Featured photo: glass of alcoholic drink (Reproduction/Daniel Leal/Gatty Images Embed)