Americans drink about 2.3 gallons of alcohol a year: study
Source: https://thehill.com/
BY JOHN BOWDEN
01/14/20
Americans drink, on average, 2.3 gallons of alcohol per year in the form of beer, wine and mixed beverages, according to a new analysis of federal health statistics.
An analysis by The Associated Press found that Americans consume more alcohol per person in modern times than Americans in the 1910s did before the advent of Prohibition, a constitutional amendment that banned the sale of alcohol nationwide.
Consumption by the average American was just over 2 gallons per year at the time, according to the AP, which noted that the number of deaths per year (88,000) associated from excessive drinking actually ranks higher than the opioid crisis in terms of total deaths.
“Consumption has been going up. Harms (from alcohol) have been going up,” Dr. Tim Naimi, an alcohol researcher at Boston University, told the AP in an interview. “And there’s not been a policy response to match it.”
The news comes just a day after it was announced by beverage industry trackers that U.S. wine consumption dropped in 2019 for the first time since 1994.
“Millennials are just not embracing wine with open arms compared to previous generations,” an industry analyst told The Wall Street Journal. “With the rise in low and no-alcohol products and general consumer trends toward health and wellness, wine is in a tough place.”
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