Two bills set for their first hearings at the Colorado Legislature this week would increase taxes or fees on beer, wine and spirits sales to fund increased treatment for alcohol-use disorder and a new mental-health hospital in Aurora. And with the measures generating a lot of discussion in advance of their hearings, Colorado Brewers Guild Executive Director Shawnee Adelson and state Sen. Judy Amabile, who is a primary sponsor of both proposals, sit down with me to discussion the issue on “Colorado Chamber Office Hours.”
Amabile speaks of the need to create more beds for mental-health patients in a state system that is so short on them that some people involved in suspected criminal activity are getting released because there is nowhere for them to stay. She also argues that because Colorado has some of the lowest alcohol excise taxes in the country, beverage manufacturers should be asked to contribute more to treatment options at a time when the state faces an $850 million budget shortfall.
Adelson notes, however, that brewers already generate $56 million in state excise taxes that legislators could choose to put toward substance-abuse treatment if they wanted. And she talks about how the increases in taxes and fees — equivalent to a bump of more than 150% above existing beer tax levels — could cascade into larger price hikes because of the three-tiered system of production, distribution and retail sales, reducing demand for products already experiencing drop-offs in consumption.
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