bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Norwegian “russefeiring”. The use of alcohol as a ritual in the “rite of passage” to adulthood
Authors: Sande Allan
Published: January 2018

The article deals with the use of alcohol in a special ‘rite of passage’, called russefeiring, among youth in Norway. Traditionally, rites of passage transform youths' identity and include them in the community of adults. Nowadays, not having these collective rituals, young people in Norway have invented a new rite of passage in the form of prolonged graduation parties, held by 18-year-olds ending their compulsory higher education. Thus, the russefeiring is a symbolic action that marks the transition from youth to adulthood. In the liminal phase of the ritual the young people wear special clothes, celebrate and drink beer and spirits during a period of 17 days, from the 1st to the 17th of May – the former being a traditional day of intoxication, the latter being the Norwegian national day.

The article argues that the more traditional rites of passage are transformed into a passage to friendship, in which expressive individualism is stressed as a value, making the intoxication and fraternization among youth a ritual of its own. The rite of becoming an adult has thereby turned into a street theatre of novices who play with norms and taboos in public.

The article discusses the use of symbolic anthropology and field methods in research relating to this kind of ritual alcohol use and intoxication. Theoretically, the focus is on studying alcohol use as a ritual practice. Post-structural theory defines ritual action as the communication of meaning and the construction of reality, identity and community. Use of alcohol can be defined as a key symbol in these ritual processes, offering an opportunity to communicate meanings between members in the society and culture.
Dirty drinking. The construction of class and masculinity among youth
Authors: Lalander Philip
Published: January 2018

The focus of the article is on how ideas about alcohol consumption and home-made liquor are constructed by 30 upper secondary school pupils, mainly from two schools: Lars Kagg, which is oriented towards blue-collar occupations, and Stagnelius, which is oriented towards white-collar professions. The Lars Kagg culture is very much focussed on practical matters; it is a do-it-yourself culture, and home-made liquor is not seen as something problematic, but more or less as part of their culture. For the Stagnelius pupils, on the other hand, home-made liquor is seen as a sign of cultural inferiority and very much associated with blue-collar professions. The Stagnelius pupils use these stereotypes about home-made liquor to construct an imaginary hierarchy in which they are part of the upper level and the Kagg pupils part of the lower. Drinking heavily and home-made liquor are thus not seen as something preferable.

These stereotypes should guide Stagnelius pupils towards moderate and sophisticated drinking, but this is not the case. At weekends they drink in about the same manner as the Lars Kagg pupils. This has, for young men, partly to do with their efforts to define themselves as genuine men. Boozing together makes it possible for them to create a form of raw masculinity and an image of themselves as hunters, looking for a girl. This image contradicts the stereotypes they make about themselves and the Kagg pupils. The weekends make it possible for them to be less sophisticated and more like brutal conquerors. Young women don't seem to have these privileges to binge drink. Nor can they do ‘dirty drinking’, i.e., drink directly from the bottle or drink home-made hard liquor. If they do they risk being labelled as obscene. It is, however, not just the desire to construct a tough masculinity that leads the pupils to boozing, but also an effort to escape self-discipline.
Use of treatment among drug abusers. A five-year prospective study of a treatment-seeking cohort
Authors: Ravndal Edle , Vaglum Per , Skjei Elisiv Hårstad
Published: January 2018

Background:

There is little longitudinal research concerning the number and length of different inpatient and outpatient treatment episodes among drug abusers. Most studies follow clients through one or a few treatment episodes and over short time-periods only.

Design:

Two-hundred Norwegian drug abusers (31 % females, mean age 27.5 year), who consecutively applied for treatment at Phoenix House, Oslo, were personally followed up on average 5 years after the first evaluation.

Material:

The material consists of 139 drug abusers, 79 % of the original 200 (12 % deceased).

Method:

Both at first and second evaluation all were interviewed with a structured research interview schedule covering sociodemographic data, substance abuse, legal problems, social adjustment, personality disorder (MCMI), nervous symptoms (SCL-90) and all kinds of treatment received, both number and length of treatment episodes.

Results:

All except six persons had at least one inpatient treatment stay during the observation period. Average time was 17.6 months in inpatient treatment and 26.0 months in outpatient settings. This means that during 73 % of the observation time the subjects took part in some kind of treatment. Subjects with many inpatient stays had a shorter drug career before the first evaluation. Subjects with few and long inpatient stays were in a somewhat better situation at follow-up, while subjects with manyand short inpatient stays had more alcohol problems but shorter drug careers.

Conclusion:

Frequency or duration of treatment episodes is not related to client characteristics. It is not the availability of treatment that is lacking but rather treatment effects.
Construing clients with substance abuse problems as alcoholics
Authors: Arminen Ilkka , Perälä Riikka
Published: January 2018

The article is concerned with the way that a 12-step treatment programme construes a certain kind of image of its clients and their substance abuse problems. The main focus is on how the basic assumptions of the treatment programme are reproduced and maintained at the weekly meetings of the multiprofessional team running the programme. The article offers a behind-the-scenes look at the 12-step treatment programme: in particular, we are interested in the ways that the staff process and use the background information available on the clients admitted. We want to know how the methods and approaches used by the multiprofessional team shape and influence the kind of treatment that the clients will receive.

Based originally on the AA recovery programme, the 12-step treatment programme draws on the disease concept of alcoholism. One of our main observations is that this disease concept is conducive to selective and purposive working methods in the programme. Information on the patients' background or their test results are systematically so interpreted that the outcome confirms the view that the clients are indeed alcoholics who can only be treated by methods that are consistent with the programme ideology. Strict normative expectations are placed upon clients in the programme, and any sign of deviation will be interpreted as resistance and reluctance on the part of substance abusers to deal with their own alcohol problems. In this way the programme itself may produce resistance among clients and the staff may easily elicit the resistance and denial that they regard as symptoms of alcoholism.

A key focus in the article is on the interactive techniques and tactics applied in the programme to construe clients' alcohol problems in a manner that fits in with the institution's treatment culture. These techniques and tactics are studied using the methods of conversation analysis. The material consists of videorecordings from seven staff meetings in spring 1997, which have been transcribed in line with CA conventions.

The focus of our analysis is not on spoken interaction, but we are chiefly interested in demonstrating how the institutional beliefs and values of the treatment programme determine the interactive planning of treatments.
Institutionalised resignation – On the development of the Danish treatment system
Authors: Järvinen Margaretha
Published: January 2018

The article describes, quoting a popular Danish song from the 1980s,' bad company, those the others don't want to play with'. Bad company in this case refers to alcohol abusers, persons with long-lasting drinking problems and complicated social problems (unemployment, social marginalisation, homelessness).

The article builds on an empirical study in which the clients and personnel of 34 treatment institutions and shelters for homeless people in the Copenhagen area were interviewed.

The main finding is that heavy alcohol abusers gradually have been excluded from the treatment system and that this exclusion is connected to a neo-moralistic perspective on substance abuse. The Danish treatment system today operates with a marked division of abusers into two separate groups: those who are ‘suited for treatment’ and those who are not. This division has no empirical or theoretical scientific base; it is a ‘subjective’ classification that gradually has been ‘objectified’, and thus ‘institutionalised’ in the sense de-scribed by Berger and Luckmann. Institutionalised resignation in the alcohol and drug treatment field is part of a complex development consisting of socio-political changes and ideological shifts during the last two decades. These trends are discussed within a theoretical frame inspired by Jock Young and Zygmunt Bauman.
The GATS: Impacts of the international “services” treaty on health-based alcohol regulation
Authors: Grieshaber-Otto Jim , Schacter Noel
Published: January 2018

There is an underlying incompatibility between public health-focused alcohol regulation and the World Trade Organization's “services” treaty. This treaty, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), is very broad, extending beyond border measures to reach into many areas formerly considered purely matters of legitimate domestic regulation. Essentially unknown to the public, the GATS is currently being re-negotiated to broaden the number and types of services it covers and to place greater restrictions on the scope of governments' regulatory ability. All services, including services relating directly and indirectly to alcohol, are on the negotiating table. These negotiations can be expected to affect most adversely those alcohol policies that are considered to be the most effective in protecting public health. The European Commission and the United States are strong advocates for expanding the GATS and formally propose that countries liberalize their distribution systems, including systems for distributing alcohol. If adopted, this proposal would preclude many health-based policy options in developing countries and is likely to place increased pressure on alcohol policy in Europe, when other countries request reciprocal commitments from the EC. The paper examines threats that the treaty and its proposed expansion pose for alcohol monopolies, advertising restrictions, governments' control over availability and access to alcohol, international health-based alcohol initiatives, and alcohol policy in developing countries. Alcohol researchers and public health advocates are encouraged to play a more proactive role in international treaties to achieve more balanced results, rather than acceding to ratchet-like constraints that make the adoption of an ever-greater number of public policy options increasingly difficult.
A Part of the Game – alcohol, football fans and male comradeship
Authors: Estrada Felipe , Tryggvesson Kalle
Published: January 2018

Football is one of the world's most popular sports, both when it comes to the number of players involved in the game and the number of spectators or fans. A lot of attention has been drawn to the supporters' consumption of alcohol, most often in combination with violence. Less interest has been taken in the role and involvement of alcohol for the large number of supporters who do not become involved in violence. This study describes the role of alcohol for ordinary football supporters. What do fans drink and why? Our starting point is the research of supporter culture where we identify three important concepts for the understanding of fandom: masculinity, belonging and participation. We then analyze the importance of alcohol in relation to these concepts.

Our empirical data consists of transcripts from four focus-group interviews with Swedish football supporters during the European Championship in Eindhoven 2000. Alcohol is a central part of the supporter culture. The supporters are quite clinical in their discussion of why, how and how much alcohol they consume in connection with football. Fans claim that alcohol in general, and more specifically beer, helps them to achieve a moment of joy, relaxation and a sense of collectiveness. We did, however, find evidence that made this explicit attribution to the positive effects of alcohol more complex. The perceived alcohol intake was more important than the actual alcohol intake in achieving a desired level of intoxication. We therefore argue that beer has a symbolic importance for football supporters and that it is the specific situation that our supporters are experiencing, as much as the alcohol itself, that creates the effect of alcohol.
Folk regulation of drinking in Finland
Authors: Apo Satu
Published: January 2018

Stereotypical ideas of Finnish drinking habits have not included the concept of folk regulation, or ethnocontrol. Until the 1950s, the majority of Finnish ‘folk’ were members of the rural population. Traditional Finnish drinking has been characterised as unrestrained, or at least unregulated. When studying the folklore, memories and ethnographic descriptions of agrarian culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, the picture of a people who engage in unrestrained drinking changes. Finnish peasants an rural workers had developed different forms of control by which the village community, the household and the family could limit drinking, especially the negative effects of excessive drinking.

Ways of restraining the use of alcohol included at least 1) an economic rationale and the self-control of the master of the farm; this was complemented by family and household control, 2) rules governing drinking occasions (who was allowed to drink, how much, who supervised order, what was allowed and what not when the person was drunk), 3) the control exerted by the village community and the neighbours (stigmatisation, foiling the establishment of a pair relationship), 4) oral discourse about drinking (true stories about drinkers, belief and origin legends, songs, proverbs) and 5) magic and folk medicine (the prevention and cure of alcohol-related harm).
Control, culture and identity. Nordic temperance movements from urban and rural perspectives
Authors: Johansson Lennart
Published: January 2018

This article analyses the tensions between town and countryside through the development of the temperance idea in the Nordic countries. During the period 1880 to 1930, the prime foothold of the Nordic temperance movement was changed: it developed from an urban to a predominantly rural movement. This change is visible not least in the Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish referendums concerning prohibition, where the countryside is markedly more pro-prohibition than the towns. The relocation from town to countryside is not only geographical, but it also contains an ideological shift within the temperance movement. Started in towns, the movement was working classes' direct answer to the growing public drunkenness and an instrument used by the upwardly striving middle-class to discipline workers. Later, when the temperance movement shifts its centre of gravity to the countryside, it becomes a broad, cultural and conservative movement.

During the early 20th century, the temperance question was an important symbolic question and functioned as a social, political and cultural marker and thus mobilised a number of social groups.

The conclusion is that one should not talk about one single movement or one temperance ideology. The common denominator was that the temperance question served as a symbol and mark of identity, as a manifestation of the border between us and them.
Righteousness or the right to drink? The debate on the ration book in Sweden and Finland during the 1950s
Authors: Peltonen Matti
Published: January 2018

Sweden and Finland reviewed their alcohol control policies in the 1950s at more or less the same time. Sweden abolished its ration book system and lifted restrictions on the sale of medium strength beer, Finland in turn revised its mechanisms for controlling the purchase of alcohol, a version of the Bratt system. In Sweden, alcohol consumption increased sharply and the number of drunkenness offences doubled. In Finland, by contrast, nothing happened. Why? History provides one possible source of explanation. The Swedish version of the Bratt system was much stricter (with monthly rations allocated on the basis of social class and sex) and therefore there was greater pressure towards a liberalisation of alcohol policy than was the case in Finland. During the war and in the post-war years Finland had a strong labour movement, which was keen to underline and demonstrate that the working class were in every respect decent and upright people. The debate that was touched off by the General Strike in 1956 is particularly interesting. On the political right, workers were frequently portrayed as heavy drinkers; the political left worked hard to fend off this propaganda attack. In this kind of atmosphere it was impossible to seriously call for a liberalisation of alcohol control policy in Finland.
Patient evaluation of psychosocial treatment interventions in Swedish methadone maintenance programmes
Authors: Åberg Katarina , Grönberg Annika , Persson Christina , Gerdner Arne
Published: January 2018

This is the first study on patient evaluation of the psychosocial treatment interventions in the four methadone maintenance programmes (MMPs) in Sweden, i.e. in Uppsala, Stockholm, Lund and Malmö. The study was performed in two phases. An inventory of psychosocial treatment elements was conducted through interviews with managers or responsible staff members. The Stockholm MMP offers many psychosocial activities and interventions within its own organisation, while the other programmes are highly dependent on co-operation with municipal social welfare services. The Uppsala and Lund MMPs run remote MMP-services in co-operation with local psychiatrists in other parts of the country. A questionnaire based on the inventory was completed by 190 patients, rating the importance of different elements and to what extent their respective needs had been met. In general, the psychosocial elements were regarded as important by patients in all programmes. Female patients rated daily activities and co-operation with municipal social services as more important than men did. Patients in early phases of treatment rated relapse prevention support, daily activities and involvement of relatives as more important than did patients in late phases. There were also differences between the four programmes in evaluations of how needs were met. In conclusion, psychosocial treatment elements were regarded as highly important by patients in MMPs, and there is a demand for more emphasis on such elements.
Public injection rooms, a help to heroin addicts?
Authors: Skretting Astrid
Published: January 2018

The situation regarding heroin addicts in Norway is a matter of big concern and thus harm reduction measures are seen as an important supplement to help and treatment services to drug addicts. Public injection rooms are proposed to be included in the harm reduction strategy. In the article arguments in the Norwegian debate why public injecting should be established are discussed. Will public injecting rooms reduce the relatively high number of drug related deaths? Are public injecting rooms a measure in improving the bad health condition seen among the group of drug addicts? Will public injecting rooms be a way of raising the dignity of the drug addicts? Could public injecting rooms be motivated as a way of getting in touch with drug addicts? Will public injection rooms facilitate the misuse of drugs? What about public injecting rooms in the light of the UN-conventions and the penal laws? The main focus of the article is if public injecting rooms would be of any real help to the many problems seen in the group of heroin addicts.
A scale of formal alcohol control policy in 15 European countries
Authors: Karlsson Thomas , Österberg Esa
Published: January 2018

Thomas Karlsson & Esa Österberg: A scale of formal alcohol control policy in 15 European countries

As part of the alcohol control policy analysis of the ECAS project, this article reviews and discusses previous attempts to measure the strictness of alcohol control policies and to conduct a similar analysis in the ECAS countries. Based on the knowledge gathered from previous studies, we have created a scale of our own to measure the strictness of alcohol control policies and have applied it to the countries included in the ECAS project.

The scales reviewed in this article and the scale we have constructed only measure the strictness of formal alcohol control. Drawing on the results of the ECAS scale, it seems that formal alcohol control in the EU member states has become stricter during the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1950s only three of the 15 countries were classified as having “high alcohol control”. In the year 2000 the number of high alcohol control countries had increased to six. The number of countries with low alcohol control had decreased from nine to zero between 1950 and 2000.

Comparing the scores in the different countries or the average scores in all the ECAS countries over time is, however, problematic because the changes in these numbers reflect two different trends. On the one hand, there has been a decrease in the control of production and sales of alcoholic beverages or the regulation on alcohol availability. On the other hand, alcohol control measures targeted at demand or alcohol-related problems have become more prevalent. This means that alcohol control policies have become more similar in the ECAS countries in the second half of the twentieth century.

Because of the limitations of the scale, however, we have to make certain reservations about the results and be very careful not to draw too far-reaching conclusions based solely on the results and rankings on the ECAS scale or any other scale for that matter. The scale and the results should therefore be considered as yet another attempt to quantify and rank alcohol control policies according to their strictness and not as an attempt to provide a perfect solution to a mission impossible.
Alcohol sales figures in 15 European countries: corrected for consumption abroad and tax-free purchases
Authors: Trolldal Björn
Published: January 2018

Björn Trolldal: Alcohol sales figures in 15 European countries: corrected for consumption abroad and tax-free purchases

The official sales statistics in a country do not, for various reasons, represent the actual consumption of alcoholic beverages among the inhabitants. In this study, the official sales statistics in 15 European countries are corrected for the inhabitants' consumption during journeys abroad, foreign tourists' consumption within each country, and for the purchases of tax-free alcohol.

The consumption by inhabitants of the ECAS area during journeys abroad was equivalent to 1.2 per cent of the total official sales in this area in 1995. The correction for the net consumption during journeys abroad in 1995 varies between a decrease by 2.5 per cent and an increase by 3.6 per cent of the official sales in the study countries.

The tax-free purchases corresponded to just over 1 per cent of the total sales of alcoholic beverages within the European Union in 1995, but they are concentrated in the “high-price” countries, that is, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Ireland and the UK. The tax-free purchases vary between 0.3 per cent of the official sales, as in France, and 8 per cent in Finland.

The changes in alcohol sales after the total correction vary between a decrease by 1.5 per cent and an increase by 11.4 per cent in the study countries. When consumption during journeys abroad and tax-free purchases are taken into account, the differences between consumption levels, in terms of alcohol sales figures, in the ECAS countries diminish.
Changes in living conditions and their links to alcohol consumption and drinking patterns in 16 European countries, 1950 to 2000
Authors: Karlsson Thomas , Simpura Jussi
Published: January 2018

Thomas Karlsson & Jussi Simpura: Changes in living conditions and their links to alcohol consumption and drinking patterns in 16 European countries, 1950 to 2000

The aim of this article, as part of the drinking pattern analysis of the ECAS project, is to examine how changes in living conditions have affected the formation and dynamics of European drinking habits in 1950–2000.

The development of living conditions in post-World War II Europe shows that the same trends have emerged in all the current EU member states. Some of the most important changes we recognize include increasing urbanization and the emergence of the service sector.

While we can distinguish similar patterns in the development of living conditions in the EU member states, this is not the case in the development of alcohol consumption. Overall alcohol consumption in the wine countries has been decreasing, while the consumption levels have been on the rise in the beer and former spirits countries.

The changes in living conditions – which we can see as a part of the modernization process – have produced almost opposite results in different countries and at different times. This also applies to the development of drinking habits and alcohol consumption in the EU member states during the latter part of the 20th century.
Estimations of unrecorded alcohol consumption levels and trends in 14 European countries
Authors: Leifman Håkan
Published: January 2018

Håkan Leifman: Estimations of unrecorded alcohol consumption levels and trends in 14 European countries

Aims:

To map the extent of unrecorded alcohol consumption in the countries within the EU, including point estimates of the quantity of unrecorded consumption and the development over time.

Data and method:

The countries under investigation are 13 EU countries (Greece and Luxembourg excluded) and Norway. The study makes use of data collected earlier – mainly survey data – and of a recently completed general population survey directed to random samples of the general population aged 18–64 in six EU member states. An indirect method was used to assess the development of unrecorded consumption over time in each country by estimating the discrepancy between the observed development of alcohol-related mortality and the development that would be expected from changes in recorded consumption only.

Findings:

The unrecorded consumption is highest in the northern European countries, and has increased from about 1 litre in the 1980s to 2 litres per adult in the second half of the 1990s. The UK, too, shows clear signs of increased unrecorded alcohol consumption as of the mid-1980s. In the remaining countries, the changes in unrecorded alcohol appear to have been more modest over time. The quantities of unrecorded consumption in the Mediterranean countries in the 1990s are roughly estimated at 1 litre pure alcohol per adult and show no signs of increases over time. The general population survey indicated low quantities of personal imports of alcohol in Southern Europe (France and Italy) – one decilitre in France, less than half a decilitre in Italy – compared to about 1 litre or more in Finland, Sweden and the UK.

Conclusions:

The downward trend in recorded consumption in the Mediterranean countries for the past 20–30 years is most likely a real decrease in alcohol consumption: the large drop in recorded alcohol consumption in these countries has not been accompanied by increases in unrecorded consumption. When the total consumption (recorded plus unrecorded) is taken into account, and not just the recorded alcohol, the higher unrecorded consumption in the “low-consuming” countries would appear slightly to narrow down the differences between the countries. However, despite differences in unrecorded alcohol, the relative position between the countries in their total consumption in the mid-1990s remains to a large extent unchanged.
Homogenisation in alcohol consumption in the European Union
Authors: Leifman Håkan
Published: January 2018

Håkan Leifman: Homogenisation in alcohol consumption in the European Union

This article examines the trends in aggregate alcohol consumption in 15 European countries (14 European Union or EU member states and Norway) from 1950 to 1995. One of the aims is to outline the general trends in total consumption and beverage preferences, focusing on the dispersion over time between all the countries involved, another to look more closely behind these trends and to analyse the development for different groups of countries. Evidence points to a clear homogenisation for the whole study period in qualitative terms, that is, in beverage preferences. In terms of quantity, the homogenisation of the last 15–20 years is less distinct and can be explained mainly by a drastic reduction in wine consumption in the Mediterranean wine-drinking countries. As to the remaining countries (beer and former spirits-drinking countries), there has not been any quantitative homogenisation from the mid-1970s onwards. The results are discussed in the light of the on-going globalisation of economy, politics and culture, not least between the EU member states.
Trends in drinking patterns among adult population in 15 European countries, 1950 to 2000: a review
Authors: Simpura Jussi , Karlsson Thomas
Published: January 2018

Jussi Simpura & Thomas Karlsson: Trends in drinking patterns among adult population in 15 European countries, 1950 to 2000: a review

Under the auspices of the European Comparative Alcohol Study (ECAS), data was compiled on trends in drinking patterns from 15 European countries (EU member countries, Luxembourg excluded, and Norway) from 1950 to 2000. This review is based on existing survey data on adult population. It turned out that (a) only a few countries (Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden) have data on drinking patterns in the 1950s and 1960s, but (b) an increasing number of countries have drinking habit surveys from the 1970s and 1980s onwards (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom) and (c) in the 1990s, almost all EU member countries have conducted surveys with data on drinking patterns (France, Greece, Italy, and Portugal, while Belgium remains the only country with very little data available). The data is, however, too scarce to say anything very certain about trends and the possible homogenisation of drinking patterns. Six indicators were studied in more detail. Abstinence rates fell in the 1960s in the traditionally abstinent Northern European countries, and later among women in the Mediterranean countries. Women's share of drinking also increased in the Northern European countries in the 1970s, but not necessarily elsewhere. With decreasing alcohol consumption in the Mediterranean countries, this means that per capita alcohol consumption among women may well have decreased, too. With a few exceptions, 30 to 50-year-olds were the age group with the highest alcohol consumption. The age distribution showed no general trends. Data on the shape of the population distribution of alcohol consumption was scarce, except for a few countries where the shape did not suggest any systematic changes. Also, data on binge drinking (high intake per single occasion) was mostly scarce, and again, the findings from the few countries with sufficient data showed remarkable stability. Remarkably slow changes were also evident in specific drinking contexts. There may be some signs of slow homogenisation of drinking patterns between the 15 European countries, but the differences are still notable. The main conclusion is that changes in drinking patterns are slow, even amidst rapidly changing living conditions. The natural time scale for such changes is not a few years or even a decade, but a generation.
Article
Authors: Guðmundsson Gestur
Published: January 2018

Gestur Guðmundsson: Wrestling with the devil. The social meaning of drugs and drug policy in Iceland

During the 1990s Iceland has seen both an increased use of illegal substances and an intensified war against drugs. The accent in this war is on preventive measures implemented in a joint effort by the authorities and various voluntary organizations. Drawing on materials from interviews, public debate and historical research, the article discusses the social meaning of drugs in late modern Iceland in relation to world-views rooted in religion and premodern society. Secularization and the weakened position of the Church conceal the fact that drugs have largely replaced alcohol (which replaced sexuality, which replaced the witches and their pre-Lutheran world-views) as the representative of Evil and Sin. However, in Iceland there is a strong tradition which views “Wrestling with the Devil” as an intrinsic part of the transition to adulthood. The ongoing war against drugs may consolidate their evil role and thus also experimenting with drugs as a part of growing up. The dominant scientific contributions are criticized for failing to reflect upon these ambiguities and the deeper meaning of drugs and alcohol, thus reproducing problematic labelling and even contributing to modern witch-hunting.
Article
Authors: Törnqvist Claes
Published: January 2018

Claes Törnqvist: Drinking on weekdays. Threat, illusion and possibility

Drawing on an analysis of 42 narrative interviews on the meaning of alcohol to young people during weekdays, the article describes the social strategies of three groups of 20-year-old youths: working youths, students and bohemian ‘black people’.

For the gainfully employed drinking on weekdays is considered as a threat to their self-ideal of being conscientious. At the same time, drinking during weekends is seen as a sign of conscientiousness.

Students live with the illusion that they are independent and can drink on weekdays if they want to. In reality, however, they do not but lead a rather ascetic way of life. This is the strategy they apply to reach their self-ideal of social success.

As for those youths who have a bohemian life-style, drinking on weekdays is thought to offer an opportunity for self-realization. They meet at restaurants every night, drink beer and chat. The atmosphere thus created is necessary for them to believe in themselves as artists and musicians. This way of drinking helps in the transformation from misery to sovereignity, which is their self-ideal.
Article
Authors: Lalander Philip
Published: January 2018

Philip Lalander: Productivism, hedonism and acting. Drinking patterns and identity formation in contemporary youth cultures

Based on ethnographic studies of different youth groups, the article introduces three characters which relate to society, to themselves and to alcohol in different ways. The first character is “the modern conscientious “conformist”, who believes firmly in leading a conscientious way of life in which wage labour plays an important part and in which drinking is marginalized vis-à-vis the world of work. The second character is “the rebellious hedonist”. This character is highly sceptical of society's demands for conformity and conscientiousness. The third character, “the postmodern expert of style” exhibits strong individual self-control. This self-control is based on fears of appearing to others as a conformist. It is therefore difficult to adopt the same drinking patterns as other people, and drinking consequently becomes a way of establishing feelings of individuality.
Article
Authors: Tigerstedt Christoffer
Published: January 2018

Christoffer Tigerstedt: There is no alcohol policy anymore …

Extensive changes in Finnish alcohol legislation in the 1990s have altered the framework for policy-making. Macropolitics, based on regulation of physical and economic availability, is challenged by various community and communicating approaches, focusing on the capacities of the consumer. However, the new governing rationale is not a baby of the 1990s, but can be traced back to the appearance of the new public health movement (NPH) in the 1960s and 1970s.

The NPH was a reaction against individually oriented health policy. Social and environmental aspects were emphasised. Illness and bad health were reconceptualised into risks operating on a community or population level. On the one hand individuals were abstract parts of large aggregates, on the other hand their ability and responsibility to control their own lives was stressed. The focus on the rights of the consumer makes it possible to regard the NPH as a liberal rationality of rule.

Although “Alcohol control policies in public health perspective” (Bruun et al. 1975) was not a liberal manifest, it introduced a new risk approach that ideologically and politically was likely to liberate individual consumers from (stigmatising) public control. This paradox is found in several writings by Kettil Bruun, who maintained both restrictive and liberal ideas with regard to alcohol control. A crucial distinction, used by Bruun, was that between measures directed at whole populations (universalism) and measures directed at individuals (individualism). This distinction loses some of its power when alcohol issues have become normalised, alcohol consumers are expected to conduct self-control, and restrictions on physical and economic control are weakened. New modes of control are developed, engaging individual consumers in community-based policy strategies.
Article
Authors: Alavaikko Mika , Österberg Esa
Published: January 2018

Mika Alavaikko & Esa Österberg: Increased power of alcohol-related industries in Finland in the 1990s

From 1932 to 1995, the Finnish alcohol control system was based on the State Alcohol Monopoly. The purpose of the monopoly was to prevent profit-making from the production and sales of alcoholic beverages; however, exceptions were made from the very beginning regarding beer and wine production and on-premises retail licences of alcoholic beverages. Consequently, the private profit-seeking sector played a part in the formation of Finnish alcohol policy right after the prohibition era.

This article does not discuss the whole post-prohibition period; it focuses on more recent trends, concentrating on the interests and alcohol policy measures of alcohol industries in Finland in the 1990s. It examines alcohol-related industries, their alcohol policy interests and the persons supervising those interests at the outset of the 1990s, before Finland signed the treaty of the European Economic Area and joined the European Union. The article also presents an analysis of the efforts of people representing alcohol business interests in the parliamentary discussion of the 1994 Alcohol Act. Finally, the article deals with alcohol industries and their alcohol policy interests during the time the 1994 Alcohol Act has been in force.

We started with the hypothesis that the influence of alcohol-related business interests over alcohol policy has strengthened in Finland in the 1990s. The materials also lend support to this assumption. Private traders in the alcohol industry have not, however, increased their sway over alcohol policy in a straightforward way in the 1990s. The parliamentary proceedings on the 1994 Alcohol Act gave private economic interests an opportunity to influence the shape of the future area of operations, and in 1994 business interests succeeded in pushing through many proposals. Since then, their influence over alcohol policy seems to have weakened.
Familieinteraktion og symptomer på psykiske belastninger hos alkoholikere og ægtefæller til alkoholikere*
Authors: Christensen Helene Bygholm
Published: January 2018

Helene Bygholm Christensen: Family interaction and symptoms of psychological distress among alcoholics and spouses

This article focuses on the relationship between alcoholism, dysfunctional family interaction and symptoms of psychological distress among alcoholics and spouses. In a Danish sample of 58 alcoholics and 23 spouses, measures of psychological distress showed that both alcoholics and spouses were psychologically impaired (Brief Symptom Inventory). We found no significant differences between the two groups, indicating that being a spouse of an alcoholic is connected to the same amount of psychological distress as being alcoholic. Family interaction in this group of alcoholic families is characterized by being rigid and control oriented, with unclear communication and an atmosphere of depressiveness, hostility and anxiety (measured with Self-Report Family Inventory). Measures of family interaction and symptoms of psychological distress were mostly unrelated to measures of socioeconomic status and drinking pattern. We found strong correlations between all dimensions of family interaction and alcoholics' symptoms of psychological distress. Contrary to this, spouses' symptoms of psychological distress were almost only related to the level of conflict in the family. The results of this study emphasize the necessity of bringing considerations of comorbidity and family interaction into the treatment of alcoholics.
Article
Authors: Sahlin Ingrid
Published: January 2018

Ingrid Sahlin: Conceptual and functional aspects of prevention

Prevention measures are in general regarded and presented as new, inherently good and rational ways of addressing social problems. In this article, these three features are discussed and rejected.

Prevention is generally understood as counteracting a negative development in the future. In this sense, it presupposes an interactive relationship between the individual and the society, an idea that emerged with the Enlightenment and flourished in the hygienic movement in the beginning of the 20th century. However, some current preventive measures that target potential criminal behaviour and drug abuse aim at immediate control, and these methods can be tracked to even older means of protection and repression, such as exclusion and incapacitation. In the first half of the 20th century, the combination of grand future perspectives and immediate control of allegedly “asocial” individuals resulted in huge prevention programmes, materialised in the form of concentration camps in Nazi Germany and eugenic programmes in other countries. Prevention is, consequently, in itself neither new nor good but an historically well established way of providing legitimacy for controversial policies.

During the last decades, different prevention models have competed with and succeeded each other. It is claimed, with references to examples from Sweden, that the choice between them cannot be explained by evidence of their success or failure in preventing social problems or crime. Rather, the state seems to promote the model that complies best with its current social and economic policy. Conversely, if a prevention model is at odds with general policies, it will be abandoned regardless of its efficiency.

The conclusion is that prevention is neither new, good nor rational. However, when it is presented as such, it maintains its main latent function, namely to reflect and reproduce the current ideology of the state.
Alcohol policy strategies and public health policy at an EU-level: The case of alcopops1
Authors: Sutton Caroline , Nylander Johan
Published: January 2018

Caroline Sutton: Alcohol policy strategies and public health policy at an EU-level. The case of alcopops

During the 1990s Nordic alcohol researchers have debated the effects of integration and cooperation with the European Union on Nordic alcohol policies. As part of this debate, some researchers have suggested that a Nordic, comprehensive alcohol policy based on public health concerns might be possible to pursue at an EU level. In this article, the authors move beyond the question of whether such a policy can be pursued, and explore instead the consequences of pursuing legislation through the public health sector of the EU.

Analysis begins with an overview of public health policy evolution in the EU, within which alcohol policy developments to date are placed. It is noted that there was no official mandate for action in this field until 1993. The public health sector is a new policy arena within the union. Moreover, it is a sector in which EU policy-making is limited to encouraging trans-state cooperation. Legislative regulation is explicitly forbidden. In this context the Commission has created alternative venues for political action. The authors identify these as: the construction of ‘European phenomena’ through supporting the accumulation of ‘European knowledge’, support to developing interest groups, public opinion building, and the construction of practical competence.

The alcopops case illustrates both general policy-making in the EU as well as the more specific character of public health policy The most important observation is that despite initial hopes that EU legislation could be introduced to limit demand for the beverages, once the issue became defined as an object of public health policy, EU action was limited to the creation of voluntary recommendations to member states. The authors conclude that advocates of a restrictive, regulatory policy should reconsider the link between the Nordic perspective on alcohol as a public health issue and the pursuit of alcohol legislation for the European Union. A more segmented approach to alcohol policy and a more flexible framework for defining the problem could provide a more fertile base for the introduction of legislative measures to control alcohol harm.
Beverage specific effects on suicide
Authors: Norström Thor , Rossow Ingeborg
Published: January 2018

Thor Norström & Ingeborg Rossow: Beverage specific effects on suicide

The authors analyze the relationship between suicide and beverage specific indicators of alcohol sales in Norway and Sweden. The data comprised aggregate time series for Norway (1918–1994) and Sweden (1948–1994). The suicide indicator was the number of male suicides per 100,000 inhabitants (15+). The beverage specific indicators were sales of beer, spirits and wine (liters 100 % ethanol per inhabitant, 15+). The beverage specific effects on suicide were estimated by means of ARIMA-models. For Norway as well as Sweden, there was a statistically significant relationship between suicide on the one hand, and sales of beer (in Sweden retail sales only) and spirits on the other. A common finding in the two countries was the absence of any effect of wine sales. A tentative interpretation of the findings is that spirits and beer sales are markers of the prevalence of an important risk group for suicide, i.e., heavy drinkers. The fact that beer seems to be of greater importance in this context in Norway – which might be attributable to differences between the two countries in the availability of this beverage – is a reminder of how culturally bounded the findings are.