In the USA there is approximately $116 billion spent on alcohol per year. This is over 20 times the amount of money spent by the National Cancer Institute in 2008. Of major medical-legal importance is the fact that 50% of the money spent on alcohol involves illegal or unhealthy alcohol use. Illegal use is 20% of the money spent on underage drinking and 30% involves individuals with excessive drinking. This illustrates the large and pervasive economic aspect of unhealthy alcohol use (Compare the 50% unhealthy use of alcohol to the 100% unhealthy use of tobacco products).

One Half of Alcohol Drinking in the USA is Illegal or Excessive.

The alcohol industry derives half of its income from illegal or excessive drinking. Five times as much money is spent on illegal underage drinking as is in the National Cancer Institute budget for 2008. Three data sets representing 217,192 subjects 12 years or older were analyzed for estimates of a variety of numeric quantities to characterize alcohol consumption and expenditure patterns in the USA. (Constructed from data in Foster SE, et al, JAMA, 289:989, 2003 and NCI Website)
As the number of dollars or the number of advertisement increase so does the amount of alcohol consumed.

Advertising Increases Alcohol Consumption

For each alcohol advertisement viewed and for each dollar spent on alcohol advertising above the per capita average, per capita drinking increased 1% and 3% respectively. Between April 1999 and Feb 2001, youth ages 15-26 living in areas represented by 24 US Nielsen media markets were randomly selected and interviewed by telephone about alcohol consumption and exposure to alcohol advertising. 61% drank within the past month. At baseline, 60% of the sample was younger than 21. Average monthly ore capita exposure to advertising was 22.7 ads and drinking was 29 drinks. US media markets spend approximately $1.2 billion on alcohol advertising each year.
Over the last several years there has been a rapid increase in health care costs averaging about 9% per year. The cost of alcohol treatment has also increased averaging about 3% per year.

Costs of Alcohol Use are Rising