YOU ASKED

SOCIETAL COST OF ALCOHOL HIGHER THAN FOR SMOKING

Q: Is there any study on the true cost of alcohol abuse vs. smoking in U.S.
society?

D. Elder, Sacramento

A: There's no recent, reliable study that uses the same methodology and
data to estimate the social price tag of each -- but two separate reports
are worth comparing.

Still, no matter how you massage the numbers, the costs of alcohol abuse
come out on top -- even higher than drug abuse -- though smoking-related
expenses aren't far behind.

A recent study, released in May by the National Institutes of Health,
estimated the annual costs of alcohol and drug abuse in the United States at
$246 billion. Sixty percent of that, or $148 billion, was due to alcohol abuse.

In addition to the medical costs of addiction, the numbers in the NIH study,
based on 1992 data, included costs due to lost productivity, crime and auto
accidents. Though alcohol abuse expenses are higher, the NIH study found
they have remained constant since 1977, while drug-related expenses have
risen sharply.

In a comparable study, released in March, the Treasury Department estimated
the annual economic costs for smoking at $130 billion. That study also
included expenses for smoking-related fires and smoking during pregnancy.

A state-by-state breakdown of smoking-related medical costs will be
published in the September/October 1998 issue of the journal Public Health
Reports. For a copy, write to the study's co-author, Dorothy Rice, at UC-San
Francisco, Institute for Health and Aging, Box 0646, San Francisco, Calif.
94143.

Question? Call (408) 920-5003.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett