USE ALCOHOL TAXES TO PAY FOR TREATMENT;

Novel Idea: Revenue Could Finance Expansion Of Addiction-treatment Programs
In Maryland.

BALTIMORE IS regarded as the most drug-addicted place in the United States
because:

Drug overdoses claim more lives in the metropolitan area each year than
violence does.

Emergency room admissions for drug overdoses here are the highest in the
nation.

These are among the chilling statistics contained in a new study, "Smart
Steps: Treating Baltimore's Drug Problem," which should be required reading
for all Marylanders.

The study, available at www.drugstrategies.org, comes at a crucial time.

For the second year in a row, Mayor Martin O'Malley has designated drug
treatment as the city's legislative top priority for the General Assembly
session, which begins Jan. 10.

Also, within weeks, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's statewide task
force on drug treatment is scheduled to release its recommendations.

As proposals emerge to expand drug treatment, the obvious question is: Who
will pay for them? In this respect, the "Smart Steps" study, financed by
the Abell Foundation and the Open Society Institute-Baltimore, offers
provocative ideas.

"Maryland's alcohol excise tax rates are among the lowest in the nation,"
the study says. "Raising them would help discourage underage drinking and
help the state government strengthen its funding support for treatment."

Drug Strategies, the Washington research institute that prepared the
document, expects howls of protests from the politically potent liquor and
hospitality lobbies.

That's why it proposes that as a first step, state lawmakers should earmark
for treatment the $24 million that is currently collected each year in
beer, wine and liquor taxes.

This is a solution that Lieutenant Governor Townsend and Mayor O'Malley
should embrace.

But the idea should be taken further.

Maryland has not adjusted its tax on liquor since 1955. The tax on beer and
wine was last changed in 1972.

Should these tax rates be increased? Of course they should. Not only is
drug addiction particularly lethal in Maryland, but deaths from alcohol
poisoning and alcohol-related diseases and accidents here are far higher
than the national average.

Historically, the liquor lobby has had close ties to Maryland's Democratic
politicians, some of whom are past or present tavern owners.

But isn't this worth casting aside that kind of self-interested, partisan
alliance? People are dying in this city because of drugs. They are dying in
the suburban counties at a growing rate because of drugs.

If an increase in liquor taxes could help slow the spread of this scourge,
or even begin to reverse it, we'd all be better off.

It's a proposal that deserves serious consideration come January.