ABSTRACT
Public education about alcohol and its effects plays an important role in Swedish alcohol control policy. The production and wholesaling of beers in Sweden is in private hands, and in 1980 there were 71 breweries employing around four thousand people to produce 285.3 million litres of beer. The production, importing and wholesaling of spirits, wines and foreign beers in Sweden is controlled by a State monopoly called AB Vin and Spritcentralen. Psychiatric services, however, only respond to a minority of known alcohol related problems in Sweden. As in Norway, the majority of responses to alcohol problems come from municipal temperance boards and the central social welfare committees. The Committee on Health Education is responsible for the production of certain materials and for the organisation of central campaigns for which it also supplies basic data. The fall in the real price of spirits is important given that 51 per cent of all alcohol consumed in Sweden is in this beverage type.
