If France’s liberal policy on alcohol would be applied in Finland
Maybe someone can help me understand this - Here in France, bottled water costs more than a bottle of merlot. Alcohol can be found at every corner shop, beer, wine, and hard liquor. People are consuming alcohol throughout the entire day. Yet, in three days I haven’t seen one noticeable drunk person. No drunk hooligans disturbing the peace. Not one bum passed out in the park or street. No one pissing in the alley, no smell of urine. The local youth seemed to somehow be able to enjoy themselves outdoors without getting wasted.
Ask any welfare statist and they’d tell you that if France’s liberal policy on alcohol would be applied in Finland, all hell would break loose, we’d see even more bums in the downtown, more disruption on the streets, and rivers of piss winding through the sidewalks. So what gives? Why can the French act mature with alcohol but we in Finland can’t? Why can the French government treat their citizens like adults while the Finnish government needs to treat everyone like children?
Like a lot of things the answer comes down to culture not law. The French have been drinking slowly and sensibly for genrations and the Finns have been binge drinking for the same. Until it stops being “cool” to be wasted, all the freedom in the world won’t help and the government doesn’t decide what’s cool.
Comment by finnsense — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 8:54 am
And yet, people burn about 200 cars every day in France. If they are pissed about something it’s 350 cars. So what gives? Why do French act like stupid hooligans and they can’t even blame alcohol, like we do
Comment by JJ — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 9:15 am
The problem is the same with England, again tougher rules, people are less used to drinking sensibly and so it causes more problems.
I have lived in England and Spain and see the exact same thing you have just described. Problem is losening the rules now would be a disaster, much like English people going to countries where they have no restrictions on alcohol, aparently now consulates are sick of paying for the mess and will start charging the cost of their services to English people getting into trouble abroad whilst drunk.
On the other hand governments just buffle me, in Spain they are changing laws to be more like Finland and England and quite frankly, it is making things worse, causing problems we didn’t use to have, their reaction, make them ever tighter, preposterous.
(Of course I am not taking about all English people but about the difference in attitudes when out and having a drink that I have perceived between the different countries.)
Comment by natalia — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 9:39 am
I watched a drunk guy fall unconscious flat on his face and glasses in the middle of the street yesterday, nearly getting run over. It always makes me wonder how they get served at pubs when so close to blacking out and how it is so much a part of the culture that it barely warrants notice. Fortunately two guys called an ambulance and though he broke his glasses it didn’t appear that he got shards in his eyeballs.
Finland wants to raise the alcohol tax and punish all the other cultures in the EU who manage to avoid having drunks permeate daily life when maybe not selling alcohol and busting the go-betweens who hang in front of the Alko and purchase for drunks for a fee might have some positive effect. Supposedly there are laws preventing the sale to obviously intoxicated persons, but it apparently doesn’t get enforced very often, if ever.
In France, it’s considered extremely gauche to be publicly drunk. Here, it’s about as notable as snow in January which might be why people who grow up here simply don’t notice it, but everyone else does. ( In the original “Kingdom Hospital”, a.k.a. Riget, the doctor gets a donor liver from….Finland. ) Taxation is the easy way out whereas social changes like making falling over unconsciously drunk in the middle of the street passe is a lot more work. Finland fixed the high rate of heart disease and has mostly succeeded in making smokers a social pariah, why they only tax alcohol when it’s clearly not a working solution is quite curious.
Comment by hfb — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 10:29 am
Well, I’ve sometimes thought that prohibition WOULD actually serve these frikkin’ Tontos just right, because hey, they just don’t bloody LEARN do they? Vitun juntit and their booze…
But can’t have that, because I’d then be forced to kill those prohibionists for denying me my occasional pint of Guinness
Comment by AnonyMeaCulpa — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 11:12 am
“Finland wants to raise the alcohol tax and punish all the other cultures in the EU who manage to avoid having drunks permeate daily life”
Yes, increase the liquour prices for all 300+ million residents of the EU in order to curb drinking of 5% of 5.2 million Finns with a drinking problem.
Let’s also increase food prices throughout the whole EU since obesity has also become a problem in Finland (Of OECD nationals, Finns are the second most obese group).
Comment by Peter — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 11:45 am
Sad to say it, but IMHO there is one thing that
many Finns didn’t learn and probably never will,
regardless of government position and taxes:
Drinking CULTURE.
Comment by Armas — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 11:48 am
France, laughing out loud…
Comment by kk — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 12:10 pm
AMC - I wasn’t suggesting prohibition as I like my Guinness too, but refusing to sell to guys who can barely stand up would be a big help. I figure a guy who got that drunk didn’t do so at home and decided to go for a stroll in the middle of the street….he was likely at a nearby pub.
And in the time it took me to go take the dog to the dog park I watched a drunk guy drop trou and poop under a tree by the gate next to the park. I swear, if I never saw a drunk eliminate bodily waste in public view in broad daylight ever again I’d be thrilled.
Comment by hfb — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 12:13 pm
I think liberal policy on alcohol will be applied in Finland the very minute people here can PROVE they can consume alcohol without (hopefully never) getting drunk (this applies especially the Finnish youth!).
Yeah right. There’s life on Mars earlier than this happenes.
My point is that the only to blame are ourselves!
I’m an absolutist BTW.
Comment by Cameraperson — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 12:28 pm
Blah I can’t spell…
Comment by Cameraperson — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 12:29 pm
Death rate from cirrhosis of the liver:
France: 31 per 100000
US: 17 per 100000
Finland: 17 per 100000
In 1990, estimates of 19.1% and 13.0% of all premature deaths in French men and women were attributed to alcohol. In Finland there is yearly about 2500 alcohol related deaths (poisoning, violence, diseases) or about FIVE percent of all deaths.
So much for “civilized” drinking, French (not so much younger generations) are continuosly little drunk and that is even more dangerous to one’s health than weekend binge drinking.
Comment by tim73 — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 12:44 pm
It has to do with the “Vodka-Whiskey belt” vs. the “wine culture”. Where the grapes don’t grow the people don’t have the long tradition of being drunk all day long and thus not feeling the urge to get really drunk every now and then.
You are now in a wine-culture area but go sometimes a few hundred kilometers up north and you’ll find a differnet kind of France - mixing the worst of both worlds, drinking all through the week and then getting drunk on weekends. The result is huge alcohol consumption. And although the French government has fought the ills of alcohol quite successfully during the past decades, alcohol related illnesses are still by far the biggest health risk among the French.
The idea that if wine culture (along with less restrictions) could be imported to Finland or other Northern countries, the Vodka or Whiskey culture would disappear is just wishful thinking.
Comment by spendler — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 12:45 pm
By the way, the perhaps the biggest reason why the French alcohol consumption has been going down is that the proud tradition of driving never mind how drunk you are is disappearing fast - thanks to the government efforts.
Comment by spendler — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 12:58 pm
This is just about the worst single item in Finnish life I know. Even when I first began to drink, I was never able to understand the pleasures of puking all over yourself. Another rotten thing is that so many of us turn into absolute assholes while intoxicated. I know that this might not be politically correct, but there just has to be some genetic reasons in the play. Hate to make comparisons but, for instance, the North American Indians seem to have a little bit similar rough times with firewater.
Comment by Petteri — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 1:00 pm
As You can see, some of us love this tradition of restrictions and prohibitions. Your private behavior is outsourced to government in Finland.
Comment by jormanen — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 1:00 pm
“I know that this might not be politically correct, but there just has to be some genetic reasons in the play…”
It’s not non-PC, it’s science already. They have really spotted a gene, that makes you violent, while intoxicated. That’s why there is some ass-kicking booze at the bottom of the bottle for some people, while some deal with it with grace.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
Tim73 - I don’t know where you got that data, but M&M reports are never so tidy, especially with regard to deaths caused by complications related to smoking or drinking. Cirrhosis is not always attributed to alcoholism as it can be caused by Hep B and/or C.
The current Eurostat M&M data ( found http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-08-02-002/EN/KS-08-02-002-EN.PDF ) shows in 1998 data that, in males, 6.9/100,000 in France vs. 9.5/100,000 in Finland died of a primary cause of alcohol abuse. Only Denmark was higher. Of course, like obesity, the cause of death is often listed as something else, like heart failure, renal failure, etc. I’d bet that alcohol is responsible or related in a lot more deaths in Finland, but such things are hard to prove when the data isn’t there.
Having worked for several years in a project building an artificial human liver from both human and pig hepatocytes maybe one way to discourage people from bingeing is to make people touch and smell a liver abused by a lifetime of alcohol abuse. A human liver like that is enormous and hard. I remember having to take a special saw to one once just to get a sample I needed. It can often be green, too. We used to guess people’s weight and alcohol intake by looking at the amount of fat globules left at the top of the vial after spinning the cells down to separate them. The liver is pretty resiliant….most alcoholics will die from booze long before their liver gives out.
If the French do stay constantly drunk, the thought of which seems to comfort a few, at least they do it with a bit more dignity.
Comment by hfb — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 1:41 pm
I think this has a lot less to do with the government of Finland, or for that matter of e.g. Sweden or Norway… it’s the Northern European culture. It’s the same in England. For some reason we Nordic and northern European people seem to have a binge drinking streak in us. We can’t do the southern European casual relaxed attitude towards drinking.
It’s hard to say why, but it’s deeply engrained in us, even if we don’t know how or why. I think it’s probably due to our protestant/Lutheran pasts.
I think if you changed the drinking laws to French-style regulations as of tomorrow, the whole country would be drunk as drunk can be for weeks. It just wouldn’t work because even if the law would change, our engrained cultural attributes would remain.
I don’t know what the answer is…!
Comment by JG — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 2:20 pm
It’s perfectly clear from the changes in alcohol taxation the year before last that the government’s primary concern is their tax revenue, not the level of alcohol abuse.
All the talk is a distraction to deceive the public.
Comment by XL — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 2:33 pm
It’s perfectly clear from the changes in alcohol taxation the year before last that the government’s primary concern is their tax revenue, not the level of alcohol abuse.
Yes, they lowered the price to make the people drink more … or was it vice versa, can’t relly remember what happened the year before the last …
By the way, it turns out that the Finns are not all that hard binge drinkers either (if they have been honest). Here are some figures from an British study:
Mean binge drinking occasions past 12 months
MEN
Finland 20
France 47
Germany 13
Ireland 45
Italy 23
Sweden 12
UK 47
Lots of all other kinds of interesting graphs here
http://www.ias.org.uk/factsheets/harm-ukeu.pdf
(takes ages to load, though)
It turns out, for example, that the Finns contribute adverse consequences to alcohol more than anybody else in Europe (or among the listed countries). Only the Germans and British got into fights because of alcohol more often than the Finns. The French fought two times less. So, is it more safe to walk in French streets than in Finnish ones?
Comment by spendler — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 2:54 pm
“I think if you changed the drinking laws to French-style regulations as of tomorrow, the whole country would be drunk as drunk can be for weeks.”
JG, would you be drunk for weeks? I believe that changing the law would not change the attitude of the majority towards alcohol in any way. On the other hand I am aware that removing alcohol tax would increase drinking of 10 or 20% minority who has the drinking problem.
Today I drink as much as I please. Money has nothing to do with the amount or quality of booze I drink
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 5:33 pm
Today I drink as much as I please. Money has nothing to do with the amount or quality of booze I drink
A very enviable position, considering that your typical Friday bottle probably is a Château Latour 1924, then.
By the way, having French prices on whisky would probably mean a slight increase as things are now. IIRC from my last trip, the bottle of J&B from the kiosk around the corner was about 30€.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Thu, May 25th, 2006 @ 5:47 pm
It’s a cultural thing. I don’t know about France, but usually in southern europe you can drink but not get drunk.
My favorite, and what we need in Finland, is a central european beer culture. Drink low alchohol beer get home with your own feet.
Comment by kjr — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 12:33 am
“So, is it more safe to walk in French streets than in Finnish ones?”
Of course it is. They’re cheese eating surrender monkeys, remember?
Comment by Anssi — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 11:20 am
Finland has its disgusting drunks peeing, pooping, and puking all over the place, France has its homeless people and drug addicts. I’ve always disliked the Finnish alcohol culture, and I think that the idolisation of drunkenness that goes on here is simply revolting. I am all for a leaner, more “central European” (as much as I hate that expression) alcohol policy.
But to say that Finland is the only country where you find disorderly people peeing and causing trouble and disgust in public places is just silly. It’s just the how and when people get to be like that that is different.
Comment by Anzi — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 12:18 pm
“Another rotten thing is that so many of us turn into absolute assholes while intoxicated. I know that this might not be politically correct, but there just has to be some genetic reasons in the play. Hate to make comparisons but, for instance, the North American Indians seem to have a little bit similar rough times with firewater.”
I have known Finns socially for almost 30 years, and have enjoyed many many evenings out with them, both in and outside of Finland.
In fact, I also had a few beers last night with a Finn.
One thing that stands out is that generally they, as a national group, gets smashed faster, and drink longer than individuals with other national backgrounds.
Often, with the same amount of booze, Finns are quite smashed, but their non Finn drinking mates are still only abit tipsy.
And the Finns keep on going while others generally sense a lost of control coming on and cut themselves off.
Of course, some of the reasons for the so-called Finnish drinking culture is peer pressure, role modeling etc. etc. etc.
But, I wonder if some genetic factors are not also at play.
I believe that because of Finnish inbredding over the centuries some 30 diseases are much more common with Finns than other national groups. (See an interesting site about Finnish genetics: http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/geeneng.html
So I wonder if some recessive gene could cause this marked difference in tolerance for alcohol which I have seen.
Could this problem with alcohol be the result of a possible 31st recessive gene for the Finns?
Or as a previous writer said in effect: Do Indians and Finns have the same problem with firewater?
Comment by Peter — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
Well, few years ago I was in France and somebody apparently had relieved himself right at small memorial for Blaise Pascal (from this you can also deduce the characteristics of relief). I suspect the perpetrator was not a finnish alcoholic, maybe it was a statement by a highly intellectual french postmodernist.
Comment by antti (the redneck one) — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 1:25 pm
Peter, asians are also known for their low tolerance of alcohol. They often also suffer severe hangovers from fairly low alcohol quantities. This has been established to be caused by biological factors. Maybe finns have something similar to this? Who knows.
Comment by Ã…boy — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 1:39 pm
Try doing a google search using:
Finns Indians genes alcoholism
Some interesting studies pop up.
Comment by Peter — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 2:08 pm
Anzi - I don’t know that anyone is saying that Finland is the only place you’ll find drunk or disorderly people….but when you live somewhere you have proximity and perhaps even the opportunity to change those things that need changing. Also, it’s incredibly embarrassing and horrible to watch someone who is so drunk poop in public view or fall unconscious onto his face. Aside from public health issues (one upside of bird flu is that maybe the cops will bust people for inappropriate release of bodily waste in public areas. ), it’s just downright gross. I just saw the dude who fell on his face, with some pretty ugly bruises and scrapes, buying 2 12-packs at the corner shop, too. After a while the pity leaves and you start to get irate that few seem interested in changing it. Maybe the dude would have been better off getting hit by the bus.
Comment by hfb — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 2:08 pm
31 says:
I don’t know that anyone is saying that Finland is the only place you’ll find drunk or disorderly people…. Aside from public health issues (one upside of bird flu is that maybe the cops will bust people for inappropriate release of bodily waste in public areas.
Although it is a little off-topic, does anyone remember this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1806832.stm
Comment by Peter — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 2:20 pm
I remember this one from the 70’s:
Brezhnev (or whoever it was) was bragging to Kekkonen how there’s no bums in Russia, and UKK didn’t quite buy it. So Leonid promised to UKK that he could take a walk downtown and shoot the first drunkard in sight, if he could find one.
Headlines in next day’s Pravda: Bald headed gangster killed finnish tourist in Moscow.
Comment by issi — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 3:31 pm
Maybe we would have fever drunks if we had the alcohol prices of France. Alcoholics would kill themselves by drinking much quicker then now.
Comment by Johannes — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 5:49 pm
Well, don’t count on Darwin to weed out the alcoholics. Everybody could freely distill their booze up to the 1840’s, so almost 300 years of free distilling was not enough to do the trick.
On the other hand, only rich houses produced enough grain for the distilling of spirits, so this limited also the consumption. Temperance movement was actually quite successful in the countryside. If I recall, finns consumed only about 1.5 liters of alcohol per inhabitant in the beginning of the 20th. century. It went bad during the prohibition, when the alcohol consumption quintupled.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 7:01 pm
After a while the pity leaves and you start to get irate that few seem interested in changing it.
It’s not like an overwhelming majority are not disgusted, but what do you propose we do? Prohibition has been tried, didn’t work. Complete liberalisation of alcohol policy wouldn’t probably improve the situation you’re describing in the short run. What we have left is the Chinese solution, applied to the opium/heroin problem in the 1950s: round up the drunks and execute them in public without a trial. Sadly, we have a constitution that kinda stands in the way.
An attitude change is slowly taking place, but it takes time. Out of genuine curiosity, do you see many people in their teens and early 20s smashed out of their minds or do they tend to lean towards the baby-boomer generation?
As I’ve said before, a lot of this might have to do with the area you’re living in. Punavuori and especially the Koff park is notorious for its winos. It used to be a lot worse. I remember from my childhood before they cut down the forest in the upper part that it was always full of them. Also the tower used to be completely derelict and inhabited by drunks. Now it’s a storage facility for the local kindergarten, I believe.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 9:01 pm
On the other hand, only rich houses produced enough grain for the distilling of spirits, so this limited also the consumption.
Exactly, there was scarcity. In addition, if you spent your days boozing instead of working your ass off trying to gather enough to get through the winter, you wouldn’t have had enough to eat.
Not so today. The ready availability of inexpensive pure (95% vol.) ethanol might just do the trick.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 9:06 pm
Yeah, well, Finns are pretty juntti with their booze, but so are the Brits. There’s hardly a Central European town left that doesn’t have hordes and hordes of Limey stag-party arseholes all pished out of their heads and acting accordingly!
Comment by AnonyMeaCulpa — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 9:43 pm
but what do you propose we do?
Why not follow the American example and bomb the fields with toxic substances.
By the way, do the Americans and most of the non-Finnic Europeans have genetic problem which makes them use illeagal drugs? Not that I’d be a racist or something, but honestly, I saw once a Spanish guy injecting something into his arm and then falling down. His shirt was really dirty, too. At least the Spaniards must all be somehow lacking in that respect.
And then to a memory from my wasted youth on the isla de Ibiza. The Irish pub, mostly frequented by Britts, was a nice place to visit. People didn’t get drunk and knew when to stop. I’m only kidding, of course. We Finns used to escape before about the midnight when the bottles started to fly and the fighting began. It must be the genes…
Comment by spendler — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 9:48 pm
>…genetic problem which makes them use illeagal drugs?
And since when, exactly, did Finns STOP using those substances?
I strongly recommend you to have a stroll around our picaresque Kallio district during one of these weekends. Might open an eye or two, you know!
Comment by AnonyMeaCulpa — Fri, May 26th, 2006 @ 10:45 pm
Finns obviously stopped using drugs at the same time as the rest stopped drinking alcohol. (It seems that here any arbitrary observations, by the way, goes for a fact and any speculation for an argument.)
Comment by spendler — Sat, May 27th, 2006 @ 6:44 am
People are more creative while drunk, whether in good in bad. France never actually brought any really smart idea to suggest a E.U directive. It’s always something along the lines “let’s stop trashing to save in city cleaning expenses”
Comment by Keksi — Tue, May 30th, 2006 @ 10:30 pm