ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the comparison of mean alcohol consumption, based on national sales statistics. This description concentrates on the three years immediately before the Nordic countries’ entrance into the European Economic Area (1992-1994), periodic comparisons from the early 1970s and 1980s, and the immediate period after (1995-1996). Private imports and other sources of unrecorded alcohol consumption play a significant role in the Nordic countries and erode the validity of national consumption statistics as a measure of total alcohol consumption. The chapter describes a longer period for total recorded consumption and recorded consumption of different categories and types of alcoholic beverages. The evolutional rather than revolutional nature of alcohol control policy generates special problems for the measurement of alcohol consumption. In Norway, an index for the amount of homemade spirits is developed based upon consumption of moonshine alcohol, such consumption among their acquaintances and in the local population centre.
