标题：Effectiveness of Bans and Laws in Reducing Traffic Deaths: Legalized Sunday Packaged Alcohol Sales and Alcohol-Related Traffic Crashes and Crash Fatalities in New Mexico
摘要：We determined the relative risk of alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents and fatalities after New Mexico lifted its ban on Sunday packaged alcohol sales. We extracted all alcohol-related crashes from New Mexico police reports for 3652 days between July 1, 1990, and June 30, 2000, and found a 29% increase in alcohol-related crashes and a 42% increase in alcohol-related crash fatalities on Sundays after the ban on Sunday packaged alcohol sales was lifted. There was an estimated excess of 543.1 alcohol-related crashes and 41.6 alcohol-related crash fatalities on Sundays after the ban was lifted. Repealing the ban on Sunday packaged alcohol sales introduced a public health and safety hazard in New Mexico. Alcohol availability policy has been the subject of many legislative sessions at all levels of government. Laws have modified the legal minimum drinking age, hours and days of on- and off-premise liquor sales, and types of liquor licenses. 1 – 3 Under pressure from the alcohol industry, and in need of increasing tax revenue in the face of budget shortfalls, many state legislatures have repealed, or are considering repealing, bans on Sunday alcohol sales. Eighteen states currently have some form of ban on Sunday alcohol sales, and several states have lifted bans since 1998. 4 Sunday packaged alcohol sales have been legalized despite little formal evaluation of the public health and public safety impacts of increased alcohol availability on Sundays. It was illegal to sell packaged alcohol on Sundays in New Mexico until July 1, 1995. Up to that time, alcohol could be purchased only by the drink for consumption in bars and restaurants. House Bill 176, which allowed special licenses to be issued for selling packaged alcohol between noon and midnight on Sundays, was introduced during New Mexico’s first legislative session of 1995. Political leaders recognized that there was strong public support for reducing rates of alcohol-related crashes and alcohol-related crash fatalities. To help promote House Bill 176 to legislators, advocates for the bill argued that legalizing Sunday packaged alcohol sales would actually reduce alcohol-related crash and alcohol-related crash fatality rates by diverting alcohol consumption from bars to homes. The rationale for this argument was that this would eliminate the need for people to drive home impaired, because the ban on packaged sales forced them to buy alcohol by the drink at bars on Sunday for on-site consumption rather than buying packaged alcohol for consumption at home. House Bill 176 narrowly passed House (37 to 25) and Senate (18 to 11) votes and was signed by then-governor Gary Johnson. Starting on July 1, 1995, licensed stores in New Mexico began selling packaged alcohol between noon and midnight on Sundays. Previous studies suggested that extending the hours and days of alcohol sales is associated with increased alcohol-related problems, including alcohol intoxication among both casual and heavy users, driving while impaired, alcohol-related crashes, and alcohol-related crash fatalities. 2 , 5 – 11 However, in New Mexico the purported goal was to reduce the frequency of driving while impaired by diverting alcohol users away from bars. Whether legalized Sunday packaged alcohol sales were associated with a change in alcohol-related crashes or alcohol-related crash fatalities was unknown. To our knowledge, no formal evaluation of the consequences of repealing the Sunday sales ban in New Mexico, or any other state, has been published. The 1995 repeal of the Sunday packaged alcohol ban in New Mexico provided a “natural experiment” for evaluating the public health and public safety impact of legislation that increases alcohol availability on Sundays.
