Nordic alcohol monopolies protect public healthThis continues the current WHO anti-alcohol campaign, apparently heading back towards the days of Prohibition, or something like it. Their online announcement will give you an idea of their tone:
WHO has released a new report highlighting the Nordic alcohol monopolies as an effective model for reducing alcohol consumption and harm. Unlike commercial alcohol sales systems, these state-owned monopolies operate with a public health mandate, restricting availability and limiting the influence of private profit interests. Countries like Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the Faroe Islands have maintained relatively low alcohol consumption levels, despite being part of a region historically known for heavy drinking and related harms.So, their basic point is that retail alcohol monopolies can be an effective way to reduce alcohol consumption and harm. By removing the private profit motive of sales, monopolies often have:
- fewer outlets
- shorter hours of sale
- no advertising and promotion.
I should comment on this because I seem to be the only person regularly blogging about the wine industry, and who actually has personal experience of a state-owned Nordic / Scandinavian alcohol retailer. Also, I should compare this with the situation in the USA and Canada.
The WHO claim is that they have compiled some data that support their current agenda against alcohol. One example is shown in the graph below, looking at alcohol per capita consumption (APC) in the various countries. The Nordic countries have smaller APC than most of the other European countries.
However, the WHO have not looked at how the “government monopolies” actually behave, in practice. They may once have behaved the way WHO imagines, but that was decades ago. My own experience is of Systembolaget in Sweden, for the past quarter of a century (I also have experience of Australia), where the Swedes are dedicated to providing excellent customer service.
My own personal experience of Systembolaget includes:
- it is not closely supervised by the government, but acts as an independent retailer that just happens to be owned by the government (eg. it has recently expanded its opening hours)
- if you can import it then they will sell it, although you may have to order it (and wait a few days for delivery) rather than them always stocking it on their shop shelves
- if you can pay for it then they will sell it to you, unless you are clearly intoxicated at the time or are under-age
- they have plenty of easily accessible shops
- only when the importer runs out does supply of a product end.
I have written quite a few blog posts on this situation, including the following:
An explanation of the situation:
Why are there wine monopolies in Scandinavia?Product availability:
Wine monopolies, and the availability of wineThe prices of alcohol:
The availability of wines in government-owned retail monopolies
The availability of older wine vintages in Sweden?
Why is wine often cheaper in Sweden than elsewhere?Availability of alcohol from elsewhere within the European Union (EU):
Is Scandinavia currently the most attractive wine export market?
Sweden is not actually restricted to a government alcohol retail monopolySimilarity to alcohol availability elsewhere in the world:
Why does the world have Three-Tier systems for alcohol supply?Not everything is necessarily perfect, of course:
My annoyances with my alcohol monopoly
While on the point of alcohol sales in the rest of the EU, looking at the above graph, I would ask the obvious question: what about Croatia, Malta, Cyprus, and especially Italy and Greece? It is not like these countries don’t produce lots of alcohol, including wine, beer and spirits, and sell them both nationally and internationally. The locals apparently consume less alcohol per person than the Nordic countries, according to the graph, without government ownership of retail. Also, Denmark should be noted in this list as a Scandinavian country, but their government does not own the alcohol retail.
More to the point, there was a research report published last year (Classifying national drinking patterns in Europe between 2000 and 2019), which looked at drinking patterns within the different countries of Europe four times this century, and the changes in drinking behavior during that time make a mockery of the one-time-only analysis of the WHO.
Finally, this whole issue undervalues the fact that, as alternative examples, both the USA and Canada also have states and provinces with partial or complete government ownership of alcohol retail. This is mentioned in the report as an alternative to Prohibition but not elaborated upon; and it hardly differs from the Nordic countries.
For Canada you can read: Alcoholic drinks in Canada. For the USA, you can read Alcoholic beverage control state, which lists the relevant states:
Alcoholic beverage control states, generally called control states, less often ABC states, are 17 states in the United States that have state monopolies over the wholesaling or retailing of some or all categories of alcoholic beverages, such as beer, wine, and distilled spirits.Mind you, the United States continues to be the top global market for wine consumption, and for the USA there is pressure on the current retail situation:
Retailer DtC wine shipping: the time has comeSo, WHO’s anti-alcohol campaign seems to have led to some mis-understanding about the real situation among the countries of both Europe and North America. Unfortunately, they may not need to continue their campaign for long, because APC has been decreasing in many markets worldwide, no matter what the retail structure (What’s driving wine’s structural decline?). Nevertheless, Current medical evidence says that wine is not harmful in small doses.
Poll: NYers want wine in grocery stores
Thanks for posting this David. I have looked at this issue in the past in terms of the Canadian liquor monopolies vs some of the US states ... there is virtually no correlation between the presence of a government monopoly and alcohol related harms (or even consumption more generally). In particular, alcohol related harms appear to be more connected to socio-economic factors.
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