On alkoholfronten nothing new. Opponents of a responsible alcohol policy, we come back with renewed attempts to undermine both the alcohol monopoly as the other alcohol policy measures. The last element is the David, the Department of article in DN Debate based on his fresh ESO-report and claims that alkoholpolitikens most important tools, alcohol tax and the alcohol monopoly, have been exhausted or ineffective. These should therefore be replaced with competition from the private alkoholbutiker and advocacy. Nothing new here, no new facts, just a misinterpretation of the research. Sundén has errors in both large and small.
Sundén, representing the notion that people who die prematurely due to their alcohol use, are to be seen as a socio-economic gain because the cost of health care and pension decreases. Albeit cynical, is this correct – but then you should also the loss of life and quality of life is calculated, which is not done in the report.
In a study from the SoRAD at Stockholm university, it was estimated that alkoholbruket caused a loss of 120.000 QALY’s (livskvalitetsjusterade years of life). Of course, it is difficult to put a value on lives or life years. But there are such estimates from, among others, trafikforskningen and from hälsoekonomin. A conservative assumption of sek 500,000 per QALY gives a social cost of 60 billion. Half of this cost is borne by others than those who drink, that is to say, children and family, the injured, with several. In particular, it is this cost which motivates the implementation of policy measures.
as a minimum tax on alcohol in the EU or the efforts of low efficiency information. In support of its conclusions, the select Sundén very selectively out some of the science reports. He fails however to mention that these have been criticised heavily by the majority of researchers in this area, for example, the criticism of Gmels article about the effect of the number of outlets from a group of leading alkoholforskare.
in Particular, incorrect is the reasoning for Systembolaget. The konsumtionsdämpande elements: the number of stores, opening hours, age verification, price Sundén says that all of these elements can be handled just as well by private actors. This is simply not true: research shows that when the profit motive is being released into the alkoholhanteringen leads the commercial logic to the increased availability, aggressive marketing and more tempting offers.
In Sweden, we have experience from a try when regular grocery stores were allowed to sell beer. Early in the experiment received reports of a marked increase of drunkenness in försökslänen, especially among young people. As a result of this aborted attempt in the early.
Sundén take a extremposition in relation to the experts in the field – WHO, the OECD, the world Bank, as well as a wide range of international research institutes. The lesson from all these is the opposite of the Department of the ESO report: to unleash the provincial to 1000’s of grocery stores that operate under the competition brings, of course, increased alcohol sales, increased consumption and increased damage.
