Reduce Alcohol-Related Harm During COVID-19, Public Health & Safety are Essential

Tell Gov. Newsom: California Communities Lose When the Booze is Loose

Under the dubious guise of “regulatory relief,” long-standing, evidence-based California alcohol policies critical to public health and safety have been rolled back during the COVID-19 crisis by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

The California Alcohol Policy Alliance (CAPA) is a coalition of diverse organizations and communities throughout California united to protect health and safety, and prevent alcohol-related harm. CAPA believes Governor Newsom's COVID-19 response has failed by making alcohol "essential".

TAKE ACTION now to respectfully urge the Governor to carefully reexamine the state's relationship to alcohol during this pandemic, and make public health and safety "essential" by doing the following:
• Reinstate ABC regulations that prevent alcohol takeout and delivery
• Address the disproportionate increase in alcohol harms to communities of color
• Increase alcohol taxes and allocate the additional funds to treatment and prevention
• Retire outdated/unused alcohol licenses
• Create statewide standard alcohol policy regulations within the Covid-19 response

Californians do not need encouragement to consume more alcohol at this time. The state already suffers over $34 billion in annual alcohol-related harm, with over 10,500 deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries requiring hospital visits.

In addition, alcohol weakens immune systems, making it harder to fight off Covid-19. Even individuals who may not have a substance misuse disorder but are drinking more during the pandemic are at risk. Drunk driving, alcohol-related violence, domestic abuse, financial problems, the risk for liver disease, breast cancer, depression, stroke and heart attack will all increase with excessive drinking.

Please take action to make public health and safety a priority, not alcohol industry jobs and profits.