New report - Finnish alcohol policy at the crossroads

A new study, commissioned by the Finnish alcohol monopoly, Alko and led by researchers at CISUR and a team of international experts, was released today, titled Finnish alcohol policy at the crossroads: The health, safety and economic consequences of alternative systems to manage the retail sale of alcohol.

From the report's Objectives:

In this report we present empirical evidence and analyses in order to inform public discussions regarding the future of alcohol policy in Finland, with particular attention to the role of the now partial government monopoly on retail sales of alcohol. We present estimates of the main health, social and economic consequences of alcohol consumption in Finland, applying methods developed in recent international studies. We then estimated how policies (e.g. prices, numbers of stores), alcohol consumption and then alcohol caused harms and costs would change under two contrasting scenarios recommended as being useful comparisons by Finnish and other Scandinavian experts, from both government and academia:

 

Scenario 1: Finland adopts policies similar to those in neighbouring Sweden with Alko responsible for all retail alcohol sales for beverages with more than 3.5% ABV while also having fewer stores and shorter trading hours.

Scenario 2: Finland abolishes Alko and permits the sale of all alcoholic beverages in all grocery stores.

Download the full report here.