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The Ford government is about to change booze retailing in Ontario. Billions of dollars are at stake. (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Looks like there will be some changes to where booze will be sold, imminently.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I can't tell if you're being disingenuous.

One of the arguments for the taxes on drugs like alcohol is to offset the healthcare costs incurred by people partaking in them.

The government could make the decision to restrict the sale and lower their "income", but balance it out with there being less costs in terms of healthcare.

If we move the sale to the private sector, there is no motivation other than profit. Which usually means to sell as much as possible.

Unless the private sector brings in as much (or more) tax revenue as the public sector, then the only difference is that it (likely) becomes harder to regulate. And if there is less tax dollars coming in, we'll have poorer outcomes, healthwise.

Basically, the government can say "If you want this, you need to pay in advance for your healthcare". Whereas the private sector doesn't care one bit as long as the money is coming in.

I don't understand making the argument that the government shouldn't sell alcohol, but the private sector should be allowed to. It just sounds contradictory to any good faith argument that I can imagine.