WHO recommends increasing taxes on alcohol and sugary drinks

The member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) should increase taxes on the consumption of alcohol and sugary drinks, the United Nations health agency indicated today after publishing data on these tax measures and a guide of recommendations on the matter for governments. .

According to these data, although 108 countries apply taxes on sugary drinks and 148 on alcohol, these are insufficient measures to encourage healthier behaviors, emphasizes the WHO, which recalls that alcohol consumption causes 2.6 million deaths a year and diets unhealthy kill 8 million.

For example, the WHO considers the average tax rate applied to sugary drinks insufficient, at 6.6%, or regrets that in 22 countries, mainly European, wine is not included in alcohol taxes.

“Taxing unhealthy products would create healthier populations, and has a positive impact on society, in the form of less disease and more revenue for governments to provide public services.”, commented the director for health promotion of the WHO, Rüdiger Krech.

In the case of alcohol, furthermore, greater taxation can reduce violence and traffic accidents, the expert added.

The WHO gave Lithuania as an example of a country that is advancing these measures, where revenue from taxes on alcoholic beverages rose from 234 to 323 million euros between 2016 and 2018, a period in which deaths related to this consumption decreased. from 23.4 to 18.1 per 100,000 people.

A 2017 study cited today by the WHO indicated that increasing taxes on alcoholic beverages by 50% could save 21 million lives in half a century and generate US$17 trillion in additional tax revenue, a figure equivalent to what they collect in total in one year some of the world’s largest economies.