this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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America's Booziest and Driest Counties is a choropleth map which shows the percentage of the population in each US county who are excessive drinkers. (intoxistates.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

This doesn't look right - why do drinking patterns follow some state borders like that? Culture doesn't vary sharply across state lines, and state laws regarding liquor aren't that different...

The map leverages data from the latest annual datasets of the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R) program.

Is this a combination of several separate sets of data (e.g. one for Texas and another for Oklahoma) which had different methodologies? Why else is Oklahoma (including its narrow panhandle) so different from both Texas and Kansas?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Looking at how it’s distributed, I wonder if it’s a correlation with dry (as in, alcohol sales are restricted) counties and states. For example. I don’t think Utah even allows alcohol sales (over 5% beer) on Sundays.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Using Wyoming as an example, all of the red spots are cities, everything else is miles upon miles of mostly empty BLM land. That one spot that's super red? Laramie, the town with the only 4 year university in the state, with a direct path to Fort Collins just south of that, another massive college city. You can also see the Grand Valley lit up because of all of the Mormons stopping in Delta or Grand Junction to buy booze to bring home (dry counties abound in Utah and Idaho)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The difference is real, Wisconsin has the Tavern League. Powerful group and a big reason why theres no legal weed in Wisconsin.

Meanwhile it's surrounded by states with legal weed.