(read up from the bottom)

-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Room <[log in to unmask]>
To: Kettil Bruun Society <[log in to unmask]>
Date: den 28 oktober 1999 10:19
Subject: drinking around the world: Denmark, in particular


Stanton -- looking at what I just wrote, I have to admit that there were various efforts at legislation (fairly ineffective, Jessica Warner and colleagues are showing) in the 18th century in Britain, in connection with the "gin epidemic".  So my statement that "legislative and regulatory controls come much later" is questionable.
     It's a long time since I looked at Brian Harrison, but I don't think anyone has tried to draw a connection between this era and the rise of the loss-of-control experience some 80 years later, in terms of a history of mentalities approach.  Most of the focus in the prehistory of temperance has been on American rather than British history, and it might be interesting for someone to look at this.  Robin

-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Room <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: den 28 oktober 1999 10:06
Subject: drinking around the world: Denmark, in particular


>Stanton -- it might be more accurate to describe it in terms like "experience interpreted as loss of control over drinking".  It's not clear to me that there's a "loss-of-control type drinking" as an objective phenomenon distinguishable from the social construction surrounding it.  Also, the experience of loss of control of drinking, and of one's life being out of control because of drinking, comes into history as part of the first flowering of the temperance view of the world, not as a result of "temperance controls" -- legislative and regulatory alcohol controls come much later.  See for example Mairi McCormick's "First representations of the gamma alcoholic in the English novel", Quart. J. Stud. Alc. 30:957-980, 1969.
>   Let's not be too positivist about it.    Robin   
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Stanton Peele <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: den 27 oktober 1999 23:43
>Subject: Re: drinking around the world: Denmark, in particular
>
>
>>Of course, it's more than public drunkenness -- there is a relationship between temperance controls and loss-of-control type drinking, as I showed in my paper relating AA membership, temperance cultures, and alcohol consumption:
>>Utilizing Culture and Behaviour in Epidemiological Models of Alcohol Consumption and Consequences
>>for Western Nations, Alcohol & Alcoholism, 32, 51-64, 1997.
>>
>>
>>Robin Room wrote:
>>
>>> Stanton -- Yes on ostensive public drunkenness.  But the Danes drink much more per capita than other Nordic folk, and it shows up in their cirrhosis mortality and other health problems.  Integrated drinking and ostensive drunkenness each carry their own problems.
>>>     We're left with the question of which comes first, the ostensive intoxication or the strong alcohol controls.  The answer to this may not be simple.   But there's plenty of evidence of disruptive drunkenness north of the Baltic from the 18th century, well before the modern alcohol control systems.  Nils Christie put it well in a 1965 paper comparing Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland:
>>>       "A strict system on legal and organizational control of accessibility of alcohol seems to be related to low alcohol consumption, but also to a high degree of public nuisance.  The causal chain probably goes like this: A drinking culture with a large degree of highly visible, non-beneficial effects of alcohol consumption leads to a strict system of control which somewhat reduces total consumption, which again influences and most often reduces the visible problems. But also, the system of control influences the visible problems -- sometimes probably in the direction of increasing them.... In determining the amount of consumption and the problems created by consumption, I do not perceive the system of control as the independent variable. I view the system of control to be interrelated with the amount of consumption and especially with visible problems."
>>>     (Nils Christie, Scandinavian experience in legislation and control, pp. 101-122 in National Conference on Legal Issues in Alcoholism and Alcohol Usage, Boston: Boston University Law-Medicine Institute, 1965.)
>>>     --Robin
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Stanton Peele <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Date: den 27 oktober 1999 22:28
>>> Subject: Re: drinking around the world: Denmark, in particular
>>>
>>> >So does this historical set of circumstances in your view influence actual drinking practices?  You mention rampant public drunkeness in Finland, and I have seen similar behavior in Norway and Sweden, but not Denmark.  Do you share in these observations?
>>> >
>>> >Robin Room wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> Stanton -- there's a wonderful paper by Sidel Eriksen that Harry relied on for this, where she explains why the Danes did not wholeheartedly take up temperance -- it has to do with affinity with German pietism.  In another paper, she showed that, in that circumstance, joining the temperance movement in Denmark was a strong predictor of emigrating to the US. And, in yet another paper, she shows the crucial role of the brewers at the turn of the century in persuading the Danes who stayed behind that industrially-produced beer was their ancestral national beverage.  Robin
>>> >>
>>> >> -----Original Message-----
>>> >> From: Stanton Peele <[log in to unmask]>
>>> >> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>>> >> Date: den 27 oktober 1999 21:59
>>> >> Subject: Re: drinking around the world: Denmark, in particular
>>> >>
>>> >> >Yes, Denmark does not seem to share basic alcohol policy approaches with Scandinavian countries -- consistent with Harry Levine's not classifying DK as a Temperance country, based on historical factors.
>>> >> >
>>> >> >Robin Room wrote:
>>> >> >
>>> >> >> Stanton -- Denmark, in common with only one other EU country (I think), until July 1, 1998 had no legal age limit for alcohol package sales, although there was a (not very enforced) law against those under 18 buying drinks in bars or restaurants.  The 1995 ESPAD report found that 16-year-old Danes were in the top consumption group of 26 European countries.  82% of young Danes had been drunk during the last 12 months, compared with 48% average for the whole study.  Another study found that, among Danish 11-12 year-olds, 20% of the boys and 10% of the girls had been drunk.
>>> >> >>         The new law was touched off by a furor over the introduction of "alcopops" on the Danish market in 1996 (apparently the name of one brand was "little teddy").
>>> >> >>         A comparison of a 1998 with a 1997 survey of 11-17-year-olds found significant decreases in (1) the proportion of boys and of girls drinking alcohol in the last month; (2) in the number of drinks on the last drinking occasion; and (3) in the percentage reporting being drunk in the last month.  The effects did not appear to be limited to those under 15; the authors of the study suggest that the public discussion of alcopops and of the new legislation "gave a political signal to parents" concerning the acceptability of teenage drinking.  Even so, over 20% of the 14-year-olds were still buying alcohol in a shop during the last month in 1998.
>>> >> >>         This information and the quote come from a  paper by Lars Moeller and Henrik Strunge of the Danish National Board of Health, "Changes in the Danish national alcohol policy 1998-1999 -- and the results of these changes", given at a NAD conference on "knowledge and expertise in alcohol and drug policy" in Bergen 23-25 September this year.  Robin
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> -----Original Message-----
>>> >> >> From: Stanton Peele <[log in to unmask]>
>>> >> >> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>>> >> >> Date: den 27 oktober 1999 17:16
>>> >> >> Subject: drinking around the world
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> >Robin:
>>> >> >> >
>>> >> >> >Thanks for your insights.  This sentence -- "Denmark, which has always
>>> >> >> >been more 'middle-European' than the other Nordic countries about
>>> >> >> >alcohol, recently set a minimum drinking age (of 15!); there's a study
>>> >> >> >showing some effect of this on teenage drinking there" -- is pregnant.
>>> >> >> >Was setting a minimum drinking age of 15 meant to prohibit those under
>>> >> >> >15 from drinking in public establishments?; or was it meant to bring
>>> >> >> >existing teen drinkers under the purview of public regulation by
>>> >> >> >certifying legally the kind of drinking that was already occurring sub
>>> >> >> >rosa?  And this policy produced beneficial results, according to one
>>> >> >> >study?
>>> >> >> >
>>> >> >> >SP
>>> >> >>