Alcohol crime related

The costs of both alcohol and drug abuse come from a wide range of sources, although the costs are not distributed in the same proportions for the two types of illnesses. The sources include illness, death, medical expenses, and crime. Crime-related costs are especially significant for drug abuse (58% of the total). 

Ethanol, also known simply as alcohol, is by far the most widely used depressant. Its structure is shown in Figure 14.34. In the United States, about a third of the population, or about 100 million people, drink alcohol. It is well established that alcohol consumption leads to about 150,000 deaths each year in the United States. The causes of these deaths are overdoses of alcohol alone, overdoses of alcohol combined with other depressants, alcohol-induced violent crime, cirrhosis of the liver, and alcohol-related traffic accidents. 

Alcohol abuse in the United States costs an estimated 170 billion each year. Close to half of this figure is due to a loss in workplace productivity resulting from illness and work-related injury. Other contributing factors are alcohol-related health care expenses costing society over 26 million and automobile accidents estimated at 15 million. Fifty percent of the adults in prison are incarcerated for crimes that are alcohol related. Alco-... 

Over 50% of the total population (some 100-110 million people) use alcohol in some form for recreational purposes. 250,000 or more people, as of 1972, were dying yearly from alcohol, its illnesses, and related crime. Additionally, there are nine million alcoholics estimated by authoritative sources, undoubtedly going on ten million by now. 

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