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OCR for page 225
The Paradox of Alcohol
Policy:
The Case of the 1969
Alcohol Act in Finland
DAN E. BEAUCHAMP
INTRODUCTION
The case of alcohol policy in the Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden,
and Norway during the 1960s, which was intended to liberalize their
alcohol control systems, is already an important and well-researched
episode In the alcohol policy literature. This is especially true for Fin-
land. Data are readily available on the relationship between altering the
regulation of alcohol availability and changes in total consumption, in
drinking for purposes of intoxication, in heavy consumption, and the
like. An examination of the Nordic experience is important for the ways
in which it can help frame our ways of thinking about alcohol policy
and how alcohol policy is affected by larger forces for social and cultural
change in advanced industrialized societies generally, not just for these
small nations.
It is arguable that the results of these changes are of minor relevance
to American policy. There are important structural differences between
the Nordic countries and the United States: most commonly mentioned
(Castles 197S, Hancock 1972, Eckstein 1966, Pesonen 1974) are their
Dan Beauchamp, a member of the panel, is at the Department of Health Administration,
School of Public Health, University of North Carolina.
The author is grateful to Kettil Bruun of the Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies,
and to members of the Social Research Institute of Alcohol Studies in Helsinki, whose
invaluable assistance made this study possible.
225
OCR for page 226
226
B EA(JCHAMP
parliamentary forms, elite autonomy, multiparty traditions, a long his-
tory of dominance by the Social Democrats in most countries, and a
unique mode of government by consensus and consultation.
The small size of the Nordic countries, especially Finland, makes them
questionable candidates for comparative research. Finland's population
is very small compared with that of the United States roughly 4.5
million inhabitants as opposed to over 200 million in the United States.
On the other hand, Sweden, Norway, and Finland bear important sim-
ilarities to the United States. All have had a strong temperance tradition;
Finland and Norway experienced prohibition; and the state monopoly
system of alcohol control is similar to many state systems in the United
States.
While there are always dangers in generalization from comparative
research, Finnish alcohol policy seems important for the United States
in two ways. First, the changes have been studied closely by interna-
tionally respected researchers. Their findings (which are summarized in
this paper) constitute an important body of alcohol policy knowledge
regarding alcohol availability and its control by governmental measures.
The Finnish literature regarding the 1969 Alcohol Act is an invaluable
stock of knowledge regarding the effectiveness of a small number of
conventional policy instruments commonly found in advanced indus-
trialized countries such measures as tax policy, availability restrictions,
and age limits. Thus, one goal in examining the situation in Finland is
to develop a wider base of knowledge about substantive elements of
alcohol policy as well as some general relationships between available
policy instruments that any number of similar societies might consider,
recognizing that this knowledge will not be free of specific contextual,
historical, or cultural contingencies.
As a second aim, we seek to situate this Finnish policy change in the
context of cultural changes occurring in mature industrial societies within
the past several decades. We refer to the struggle between cultural
modernization and cultural fundamentalism (Gusfield 1963) that typi-
cally arose as these societies rapidly completed processes of industrial-
ization and moved toward postindustrial or advanced industrial patterns
of dominant service sectors, advancing levels of affluence, consumption,
urbanization, and so forth.
This maturation is apparently occurring throughout industrial socie-
ties, irrespective of differences in political systems and cultures. If this
' This dominance of the Social Democrats is less true for Finland than for Sweden and
Norway. Also, the Social Democrats in all three Nordic countries suffered setbacks in the
mid-1970s.
OCR for page 227
The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
227
view is valid, then alcohol policy changes in Finland provide important
insights not only into the impact of specific policy instruments such as
taxation or availability, but also into the context of alcohol policy for-
mation in societies, such as Finland and the United States, which contain
both fundamentalist and modernist views toward alcohol, perhaps as
well as an emergent postmodern view.
THE FINNISH ALCOHOL POLICY DEBATE
Norway, Finland, and Sweden have all had relatively restrictive systems
for controlling the sale of alcoholic beverages during this century. Both
Finland and Norway experienced an era of prohibition—in Finland it
lasted from 1920 to 1933. Sweden only narrowly missed prohibition in
a nationwide referendum.
All three societies have similar systems for control of alcohol. In each
country there is a state monopoly for the manufacture and sale of most
alcoholic beverages, except for beer of very limited alcohol content (in
Finland, beer with less than 2.25 percent alcohol by weight). Generally
speaking, until the liberalization legislation each country only permitted
this very light beer to be distributed in shops and restaurants. Wine and
spirits are sold through the state monopolies
The state monopolies vary only in detail from country to country. In
Finland, it is generally agreed, the monopoly (ALKO) is more inde-
pendent from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. In both Finland
and Sweden, the monopoly has in recent years been headed up by rather
prominent political figures the director in Finland served as a minister
of social affairs and health in the early 1970s. The director of Vinmon-
opolet in Norway has been more a nonpolitical manager.
ALKO casts a formidable shadow across the Finnish economy. The
revenues derived from ALKO constitute almost 8 percent of all state
revenues. (The comparable figure for the United States is 2.2 percent
of general federal revenues and roughly 1 percent of state and local
revenues.) Furthermore, ALKO also has substantial restaurant and ho-
tel holdings: as much as 10 percent of all hotel rooms in Finland are
reportedly owned by the monopoly. ALKO is not just a retailing or-
ganization like the American state monopoly systems; it is also a sub-
stantial manufacturer of alcohol beverages.
ALKO's size and prominence in Finland seem to intensify real con-
tradictions among the three statutory purposes of ALKO: to manufac-
ture and sell alcoholic beverages, to raise revenues and to hold down
consumption. An important new factor for ALKO has also entered into
alcohol policy within the last decade. This is the emergence of an "in-
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228
j'
BEAUCHAMP
comes policy" in Finland, a process of negotiation in which the govern-
ment, the unions, and business attempt to adjust prices, wages, and
salaries. The upshot is a rather direct pressure on ALKO from the trade
unions to restrain price increases in order to moderate the impact of
inflation.
The current director of ALKO, Pekka Kuusi, is a social scientist who
Dined ALKO shortly after World War II. One of his earliest research
activities was the completion of one of the first national sample surveys
in Finland, a survey of Finnish drinking habits (Kuusi 1948~. His most
ambitious alcohol policy research project was an experiment to measure
the impact of making beer and wine more available in rural market
towns. At that time all alcoholic beverages were prohibited in the rural
communes as part of the original legislation establishing the postpro-
hibition alcohol control system. In fact, this rural prohibition extends
back to 1902.
The Alcohol Legislation Committee was formed by the Parliament
in 1948, and its report in l9S1 prompted wide public discussion. The
anticipation of this policy debate was a key factor in the establishment
by ALKO of the Finnish Foundation of Alcohol Studies in 1950 as well
as in ALKO's support for Kuusi's study of rural prohibition. It was
during this period that ALKO independently liberalized wine sales by
no longer requiring identity cards for purchasing lighter wines (Kuusi
1957~.
The changes recommended by the Alcohol Legislation Committee-
the end of rural prohibition and the liberalization of beer- would over-
turn established traditions. Rural prohibition predated national prohi-
bition and continued after its repeal. State monopoly stores were per-
mitted only in urban areas or market towns; since 1902 no sale of alcohol
had taken place in rural areas in Finland, which as late as 1960 encom-
passed 60 percent of the Finnish population. Thus, when the Alcohol
Legislation Committee recommended in 1951 that beer (with no more
than 3.5 percent alcohol by weight) be sold in retail shops and licensed
restaurants, this modest recommendation stood to overturn an unbroken
50-year-old policy. (This change did not actually occur until 18 years
later. The Alcohol Act was passed in 1968 and went into effect on
January 1, 1969. In fact the act went beyond the 1951 recommendation,
as we shall see below.)
THE FINNISH DRINKING STYLE
The way in which Finns define their alcohol problem - the Finnish drink-
ing style—is intimately connected to the policy debate over making
OCR for page 229
The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
229
lighter beverages more available. An excerpt from a 1958 study by the
eminent Finnish sociologist, Erik Allardt, might help clarify the Finnish
view of their alcohol problems (Allardt 1958, p. 15~:
The consumption of alcohol in Finland is smaller that in most European coun-
tries.... More than half the adult population uses alcoholic beverages less
often than once a month and the most common pattern is to use alcohol a few
times in a year. In spite of this low rate of consumption drunkenness is a
comparatively common phenomenon. In 1950 the rate of arrest for drunkenness
was about ten times higher in Finland than in Sweden and three times higher
than in Norway. There is evidence showing that Finnish immigrants in the United
States in the early nineteen-twenties had rates of arrest for drunkenness higher
than any other immigrant group.... Studies of Finnish drinking habits reveal
that the Finns drink at irregular intervals' mainly on Saturdays and Sundays,
and they are apt to drink great quantities at a time. The consumption of distilled
spirits is heaviest, while the consumption of wines and brewed beverages is
much smaller. The drinking of alcohol is to a great extent regarded as a means
of getting drunk.
The Finnish drinking style is seen as the inclination to engage in
drinking bouts for the explicit purpose of serious intoxication, inter-
spersed with rather long periods of relatively little or no use of alcohol.
Survey researchers in Finland have been mainly interested in how much
an individual drinks on a particular occasion with relatively little in-
terest in constructing detailed topologies of drinkers. Consequently, in
Finland there has until recently been very little interest in estimating
the number of "alcoholics." By contrast, in the United States, the par-
adigmatic definition of alcohol problems has been the long-term and
chronic ingestion of alcohol, particularly manifesting itself in deterio-
rating health, career, and family life among middle-aged men. Intoxi-
cation and public drunkenness are clearly alcohol problems, but the
central problem of alcoholism is "loss of control" over alcohol, which
for all practical purposes means heavy, chronic use of alcohol for very
long periods of time. This is regarded as the problem of a distinct
minority of individuals, although that minority is quite large in number
due to the large size of the United States.
Until the late 1960s, Finnish aggregate or total consumption was
among the lowest in the world. It still remains in the middle range
despite the notable increases during the 1960s and the 1970s. Despite
this modest overall consumption, researchers in Finland and elsewhere
have commented on Finland's relatively high per-capita arrests for drun-
kenness. Southern European countries drank much more per capita than
Finland yet had much lower arrest rates for drunkenness (Ahlstrom-
..
Laakso and Osterberg 1976~. Thus, a point of view emerged that an
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230
BEAUCHAMP
increase in consumption, specifically of wine and beer, might lead to
learning more moderate drinking styles and a decline in arrests for
drunkenness.
THE FIRST TEST FOR THE DEBATE
The debate over the existing alcohol control system and the peculiarities
of the Finnish drinking style provide the introduction to the first test of
the effectiveness of liberalizing alcohol measures the rural prohibition
experiment of the early l950s (Kuusi l9S7~.
The introduction to Kuusi's report ore this field experiment addresses
alcohol policy in the postwar period from the perspective of those in-
dividuals and groups who sought to modernize and develop Finnish
society. Kuusi argued that the increase of state power to pursue collec-
tive security in many areas is a necessary attribute of modern social
democracies. But Kuusi warns of the need to remove excessive restric-
tions in the social sphere, to reevaluate the necessity of burdensome
traditional and moralistic restraints that may be counterproductive.
Kuusi is clearly taking the cultural modernist view, referring to these
restraints as categorical restrictions.2
Regarding the controversy over making alcohol available in rural areas
and making certain forms of beer more available in retail shops, he lists
six different hypotheses set forward regarding the results of such change:
(~) the number of temperate persons will decline; (2) the frequency
of drinking will increase; (3) a shift in the consumption patterns will
occur to the advantage of the light beverages; (4) the use of illicit liquors
will decline; (S) the quantities consumed at one sitting will decline; (6)
drunkenness and breach of public peace will become more common.
Kuusi notes that those in favor of temperance tended to stress the
first and second hypotheses—temperance will decline and drinking fre-
quency will increase. The state alcohol monopoly favored the third and
fourth hypotheses, predicting a shift to light beverages and a decline in
the use of illicit beverages. Kuusi noted that the division of opinion on
2 Kuusi (1957. pp 2-3) argues that. while on balance the trend of modern social policy
has been to stress social organization and collective approaches. it is often the case that
the boundary line between the demonstrated needs of individuals for security from risk
and their need for freedom must be carefully assessed. He goes on to suggest in rather
veiled terms that sometimes this line can be drawn too heavily on the side of security and
indeed may be done so to safeguard the interests of "certain groups."
OCR for page 231
The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
231
the expectation of a decline in temperate persons and an increase in
frequency of drinking was not so large as it might seem, since both sides
agreed that this might happen, with those favoring change arguing that
more drinking and more frequent drinking were actually occurring than
the temperance groups seem to believe. The sharpest point of disa-
greement centered around the shift in consumption to light beverages.
The experiment took place in four dry market towns located in rural
areas. Two were control towns: beer and wine only were made available
through new state-owned stores. A survey was made in 1951 of the
experimental and control towns before the opening of the stores and
followed up with the measurements taken in the period 1952-1953 to
determine the effects of the change (Kuusi 1957~.
In general, Kuusi found that those who used alcohol very little were
little affected by the opening of the experimental stores; the use of beer
increased sharply in some areas (particularly in those communities in
which drinking frequency was already higher); and the use of illicit liquor
declined. Kuusi also found only slight indications of an increase in the
amount of alcohol consumed at a given occasion. There was no appre-
ciable increase in public drunkenness, and, indeed, Kuusi questioned
the relation of the control system to the frequency of excessive drinking.
The results of the experiment were somewhat frustrated by changes
in alcohol policy put in place by ALKO at the beginning of the exper-
imental period. However, the results were interpreted by Kuusi as
broadly supportive of the liberalization position, although he states this
position very carefully and tentatively.
THE 1969 ALCOHOL ACT: THE SECOND TEST
It is not possible to reconstruct here the complex forces that led to the
1968 policy changes followed by the 1969 Alcohol Act. but for our
purposes the broad outlines are of interest. The central point is that
there were substantial forces for liberalization within Finnish society,
and some of those in a strong position to influence policy were in favor
of these changes. It is clear that sentiment strongly favoring a less re-
strictive alcohol policy grew during the 1960s among the leaders of
ALKO, among the experts at the Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Stud-
ies, and among the general public. In the opinion of these experts, the
key was the sharp social and demographic changes occurring in postwar
Finland, accelerating during the early 1960s and culminating in the
election of 1966. The left generally did well in this election, and the new
government was a coalition of the Center Party, the Social Democrats.
and the party of the Finnish Communists.
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232
BEAUCHAMP
This election was seen as a pivotal one, especially among young people
in Finland, as it represented something of a break with the past, a strong
commitment to growth, and a promise to liberalize Finnish society. A
very popular book of this period was Pekka Kuusi's A Social Policy for
the Sixties: A Plan for Finland (1964), which called for a comprehensive
plan of social provision for the nonproducing sector (the aged, the poor,
and the handicapped) in order to maintain expanding, aggregate eco-
nomic demand. These ideas of development and deliberate stimulation
of growth, coupled with a growing climate of permissiveness and a much
younger population, seemed to collide with what was perceived as a
very restrictive state alcohol policy.
Temperance organizations within Finland were opposed to these
changes. The Nordic countries have had a rather strong temperance
history. While membership has declined in the post-World War II pe-
riod, this decline has been somewhat offset by the tendency of temper-
ance members to be active in politics. Also, the temperance organiza-
tions have in a sense become part of the bureaucracy, in that they are
subsidized by the State Ministry for Social Affairs and Health directly
and through the operation of local temperance boards, which serve
mainly as alcohol education agencies at the communal level.
The forces for liberalization easily carried the day, and the statutory
changes that are of interest here are these: restrictions were abolished
on the number of rural areas in which alcohol was permitted (in 1968
nearly 50 percent of Finland lived in areas in which no state store was
permitted), the state alcohol monopoly's policy toward the licensing of
restaurants was changed so as to permit alcohol (especially beer) to be
sold in more restaurants, and the legal drinking age was reduced from
21 to 20 years for distilled beverages, 18 for light beer, and medium
beer was allowed to be sold in retail shops.
THE AFTERMATH OF LIFTING RESTRICTIONS
What were the results of this much-debated, long anticipated change?
As a parliamentary commission was later to report, the effects of these
changes took virtually everyone by surprise. First of all, and perhaps
most spectacularly, total per-capita consumption of alcohol in beverages
increased by 46 percent (1.33 liters) during the first year. Most of this
initial increase (1.17 liters) was accounted for by the 124-percent rise
in beer drinking. The consumption of spirits also rose in 1969 by 0.15
liters of alcohol, then continued to rise at a steady 0.20 (approximately)
liters per year through 1975; the rise in beer consumption continued at
a much lower rate of 0.05 liters per year after 1969. By 1975 the use of
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The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
TABLE ~ Per-Capita Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages in
Finland, 1951-1975, in Liters of Absolute Alcohol
233
Alcoholic
Distilled Beverages,
Year Spirits Wines Beer Total Retail Catering
-
1951
1957
1962
1968
1969
1972
1975
1.36
1.15
1.42
1.43
1.58
2.19
2.81
0.10
0.24
0.26
0.51
0.52
0.63
0.97
0.32
0.33
0.43
0.94
2.11
2.28
2.41
1.79
1.79
2.11
2.88
4.21
5.10
6.19
1.33
1.29
1.63
2.19
3.09
3.69
4.73
0.46
0.43
0.48
0.69
1.12
1.41
1.46
Source: Ahlstrom-Laakso and Osterberg (1976, p. 9~. Reprinted by permission.
beer had increased a cumulative 156 percent (0.147 liters) since 1968;
spirits 96 percent (1.38 liters), wine 87 percent (0.46 liters) (see Table
1~. Total consumption reached 6.19 liters in 1975. In recent years alcohol
consumption has apparently stabilized. The sustained increase in strong
alcoholic beverage use in the intervening years is given an interesting
interpretation by the Finnish researchers, as we shall see below.
The changes in availability of medium beer with the new law were
radical and sudden. The number of applicants for licenses to retail me-
dium beer was considerable, and ALKO granted a license to almost
every applicant.-The total number of monopoly stores, medium beer
shops, and full-licensed restaurants also increased sharply during the
first 3 years of the change in the system. These changes are summarized
in Table 2.
According to a survey by Makela (1971), the estimated number of
drinking occasions during which blood alcohol of drinkers reached at
least the 0.10 level increased by about 25 percent. Another researcher
TABLE 2 Finnish Distribution Network for Medium Beer,
1969-1975
Number of Outlets
Retail Rural Retail Service Rural Service
Year Outlets Outlets Outlets Outlets
1969 17,431 9,878 2,716 1,195
1971 15,560 9,034 3,406 1,647
1973 13,550 7,374 3,319 1,524
1975 11,965 6,965 3,086 1,393
Source: Ahlstrom-Laakso and Osterberg (1976, p. 6). Reprinted by permission.
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234
B EAUCH A M P
TABLE 3 Per-Capita Alcohol Consumption, Finland and Sweden
Per-Capita Alcohol
Consumption
Finland
Liters Percentage
Sweden
Liters Percentage
Total
1951 2.58 3.49
1962 3.01 4.03
1973 7.41 6.73
increase
1951-1962 0.43 16.7 0.54 15.5
1962-1973 4.40 146.2 2.70 67.0
Source: Makela and Osterberg (1976, p. 6~.
estimated an increase in heavy consumers of alcohol from 61,000 in 1961
to 91,000 in 1969, whereas the increase would be likely to have stopped
at 71,000 had the law remained unchanged (Purontaus 1970, cited in
Bruun et al. 1975, p. 81~.
The sharp increase in consumption during this period in Finland was
put in a larger historical perspective by Ahlstrom-Laakso (1975, p. 1~:
In Finland and also obviously in other countries the concern over the increased
consumption among young people is connected with the general growth of
alcohol consumption. After abolishing the Prohibition Act in 1933, less than a
litre of pure alcohol was consumed a year in Finland. The two-litre limit was
broken after three decades in the first half of the 1960's. From the year 1968
to the year 1973, the consumption of alcohol again doubled. This took five
years; in other words, one-sixth the time that it took for the previous con-
sumption to double. Finns consumed 5.6 litres of pure alcohol per capita in
1973.
This dramatic rise in consumption during the 1960s and early 1970s
was not restricted to Finland; it happened in most industrial countries,
especially those with a relatively low aggregate consumption (Sulkunen
1976~. But the percentage rise in Finland exceeds that of any comparable
country (Keller and Gurioli 1976~. Makela and Osterberg (1976) have
compared Finland with Sweden during the period 1951-1973. Their re-
search reveals that Finland's growth in per-capita consumption paral-
leled Sweden until the Finnish liberalization in 1969; after this change
the Finnish level rose to a point higher than that of Sweden during the
early 1970s (see Table 3~.
MORE RECENT SURVEY REPORTS
Jussi Simpura of the Social Research Institute of Alcohol Studies pro-
vides us with a very complete picture of changes that occurred in 1969
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The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
TABLE 4 Data on Previous Week's Use of Alcohol by 15- to 69-
Year-Old Finns in 196S, 1969, and 1976
235
Year Women Men
Alcohol consumer (% of total) 1968 57 87
1969 65 91
1976 80 91
Weekly drinking instances per alcohol 1968 0.5 0.9
consumed 1969 0.8 1.5
1976 0.7 1.4
Average consumption of alcohol in a single 1968 3.0 7.3
instance of drinking (centiliters 100-percent 1969 3.2 6.2
alcoholic 1976 4.4 8.4
Average weekly consumption of alcohol 1968 0.88 5.96
(centiliters 100-percent alcohol, all 1969 1.66 8.37
respondents 1976 2.52 10.32
a The results are based on drinking instances within the week preceding the interview and
represent a typical autumn week of the year.
Source: S'mpura (1978~. Reprinted by permission.
and subsequently. Simpura in 1976 essentially replicated the two earlier
national surveys conducted by Makela in 1968 and 1969. The few key
findings for the alcohol policy debate in Finland were (Simpura 1978~:
from 1968 to 1975, abstinence rates among women fell sharply and,
while there was some slight decline for men abstainers in the first year
of the new legislation, the number of male abstainers remained constant
thereafter (see Table 4~.
The mean or average drinking instance changed in a rather surprising
way. Not unexpectedly, the average number of drinking instances in-
creased rather sharply in the first year; this number then declined (very
slightly) over the next 6-year period.
Recall that from the standpoint of the ongoing alcohol policy debate
in Finland, an increase in drinking frequency was regarded by many as
a sign that drinking was becoming more moderate and that lighter drinks
(such as beer) were being consumed.
Simpura (1978) speculates that there actually was an increase in drink-
ing instances in 1976, but this was not revealed in the survey because
medium beer had in the intervening period become defined as a non-
alcoholic drink (much like the light beer that was available in Finland
in retail shops prior to the change). Thus, he believes respondents were
less likely to report the drinking of medium beer in their responses. We
will discuss this change further below' but the researchers at the Finnish
Foundation are persuaded that medium beer instances are not accurately
reflected in the 1976 survey.
There is a decline from 1968 to 1969 in the average amount of alcohol
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244
BEAUCHAMP
TABLE 9 Last Drinking Occasion of the Finnish Population over 19
Years, in 1946, 196S, 1969, and 1976
Percent of the Population
Month Ago More
Never or More Recently N
Total Population
1946 19 30 51 2~891
1968 19 1,663
1969 15 1,570
1976 9 20 70 2,601
Women
1946 31 33 36
1968 32 420
1969 25 399
1976 15 25 60 1.326
Men
1946 5 26 69
1968 4 1,243
1969 3 1,171
1976 4 16 80 1,275
Source: Sulkunen (1979a, p. 11~. Reprinted by permission.
after World War II present a sharp rate of change in contrast with the
generations that preceded in terms both of abstinence rates and age of
initial alcohol use.
An extended quotation by Sulkunen (1979a, pp. 36-37) helps clarify
this point:
Drinking by adolescents seems, in the light of the preceding observations, to
be a phenomenon that began to emerge among those who were born in 1916-
1925 and who reached their adolescence after the war (approximately 1930-
1946~. Kuusi (1948, 111) estimates that probably more than 25~o of the males
in this age group had their first drink in the army or in the war.
Commenting on these data, Kuusi wondered in worry: "Is it too early now
to assess whether this practice of boozing at a premature age will be found as
a transitional aftermath of the war, or will it develop into a permanent custom?
In any case, this is a phenomenon that deserves continuous attention" (Kuusi,
1948~.
After thirty years, the answer is somewhat distressing. Boozing at a premature
age did not only develop into a permanent custom. It developed into a practice
of boozing in childhood. In fact, in 1976 drinking at the age of 15-19 was no less
common that at the age of 20-29, if measured by the proportion of those who
had ever taken a drink.
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The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
TABLE 10 Last Drinking Occasion of Finnish Population over 19
Years by Occupational Position, in 1946 and 1976
245
Occupational Position Never
Month Ago More
or More Recently
Unclassified or unknown
1946 —
1976 (N = 117) 9 24 67
Farmers
1946 22 33 45
1976 (N = 415) 21 26 53
Farm workers, etc.
1946 23 32 45
1976 (N = 57) 14 16 70
Industrial workers
1946 17 28 55
1976 (N = 1,033) 9 20 71
Lower white-collar
1946 16 30 54
1976 (N = 670) 5 19 76
Upper white-collar
1946 10 24 66
1976 (N = 309) 3 16 81
Source: Sulkunen (1979a, p. 14). Reprinted by permission.
Sulkunen does not so much argue that this "wet" generation drank
more on average than did the earlier generation but rather that it tended
to be more likely to drink and to begin drinking at an earlier period.
Sulkunen pays particular attention to the decline of abstinence among
older women in Finland (1979a). He argues that there is tentative evi-
dence that the younger group in turn encouraged the older persons to
drink, especially older women. Sulkunen regards these differences in
drinking styles as truly generational rather than age differences.
Sulkunen's assessment of the meaning of declining abstinence rates
and a sharp increase in the numbers who use alcohol at an early age can
be summarized as follows: Any evaluation of the 1969 Alcohol Act and
its consequences must take into account a post-World War II sea change
in the general cultural and political climate regarding alcohol. The 1969
Alcohol Act is the culmination of postwar values. Abstinence began to
decline sharply from the start of this period especially during the 1960s,
among young women and teenagers of both sexes. Sulkunen does not
deny that the 1969 act had an independent impact on this trend toward
earlier drinking and lower rates of abstinence. In fact, if one carefully
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246
BEAUCHAMP
TABLE 11 Changes in Age of First Drink for Finns in 1946 and
1976 by Rural-Urban Residence
1946
1976
Age at First Drink Rural Urban Rural Urban
-15 8 8 24 26
1~17 19 22 42 46
1~20 42 47 68 74
21- 68 79 89 92
Never 20 14 11 8
Don't know 12 7
TOTAL 100 100 100 100
N 1,056 1,545
Source: Sulkunen (1979a, p. 32~. Reprinted by permission.
scrutinizes the data that Sulkunen relies on, one can note that the de-
clines in these abstinence rates became more marked and noticeable in
the period following the 1969 act.
One might quarrel with some details of Sulkunen's interpretation.
Clearly the impulse toward liberalization found widespread support
among the postwar generation. Yet it is unlikely that this group had a
decisive political voice in the mid-1960s, even if one acknowledges the
great increase in participation of the young in that election. We must
remember that this period was one during which many factors contrib-
uted to a more liberal climate, and that many key figures in the alcohol
policy debate favored these changes.
There is room for disagreement as to what weight to assign to cultural
changes in drinking habits, the rise in consumer expenditure for alcohol,
and the increased availability brought by the 1969 act, in evaluating the
subsequent rise in consumption and associated problems. But the prin-
cipals in the alcohol policy debate see all three as factors, differing only
in which they would emphasize.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The most striking fact to an outsider speaking with various participants
in alcohol policy in Finland is the consensus they present on the debate's
central issues. Officials of ALKO and the Department of Social Affairs
and Health, Finnish Foundation researchers, and leaders of the tem-
perance organizations appear to agree about several key issues.
First, there is widespread consensus that the impact of the 1969 act
was on balance not favorable and that, while many factors beyond the
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The 1969 A Icohol A ct in Finland
247
act must be taken into account in explaining the rise in consumption in
Finland after 1969, the act itself was directly responsible for a significant
fraction of the increase in problems.
Paradoxically, there is at least tacit acceptance by almost everyone
that, while the legislative changes were probably introduced too abruptly
and with too much optimism, there was little likelihood that these
changes were avoidable by any government during this period. There
is the possibility, however, that despite support for liberalization during
the post-World War II period, these changes might have been introduced
more gradually. There were similar changes in the other Nordic coun-
tries, and the move toward liberalization and the left in Finland was
very popular with a young and very vocal generation whose values were
taken up by the major parties in Finland. Reforms of the existing alcohol
system were one of those changes that enjoyed wide popularity among
the general public.
It is important to note that there is also something of a consensus on
just why these adverse consequences occurred. A collective process of
social learning (Heclo 1974) seems to have occurred among those re-
sponsible for or attentive to alcohol policy.
Perhaps the most widely shared area of interpretation is the addition
hypothesis. Nearly everyone on the Finnish alcohol policy scene now
agrees that it is not so easy to simply replace existing drinking patterns
or structures with new ones, particularly by the process of enlarging the
availability of lighter beverages. Thus the earlier optimism of the Finnish
Alcohol Legislation Committee, which in 1951 recommended making
lighter beverages more available to stimulate the substitutions of beer
and wine for spirits, seems to have been the central casualty of the
aftermath of the 1969 act. Further, there is endorsement by all of the
principals that per-capita consumption must itself be a central feature
of Finnish alcohol policy. The parliamentary committee formed to ana-
lyze the impact of the liberalization episode took the central goal to be
not only controlling consumption but also lowering it (Report of the
Alcohol Committee 1978~. The main instruments for this goal are to be
pricing policy and restrictions on availability (mainly Saturday closings
for ALKO and stricter licensing of beer establishments).
In a larger sense, the Finnish case represents something of a shift in
the conflict between Gusfield's cultural modernism and cultural fun-
damentalism, and perhaps the emergence of a new perspective in this
longstanding conflict.
The postwar period in Finland had speakers for both viewpoints. The
research community at the Finnish Foundation and the policy makers
at ALKO generally endorsed a cultural modernist viewpoint. They not
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BEAUCHAMP
only argued for liberalization of alcohol control policy, but they also
voiced this support in terms of the changing cultural values and climate
of the times (see Kuusi 1957, pp. 1-3~. The cultural fundamentalists
resisted these moves, sometimes in terms of the traditional values of
abstinence, at other times in terms of the researchers who wrote darkly
of the Finnish hereditary type types who were given over to compul-
sive, explosive drinking that all too often resulted in violent outbursts.
The disputants have moved somewhat closer to one another in this
debate. It is misleading to depict this episode as one involving contending
interest groups of roughly equal size, especially today. By and large the
groups who are concerned with alcohol policy are quite small in Finland,
and alcohol policy issues—while enjoying wide coverage in the press-
have become defined as a secondary problem in Finnish society. The
terms of the debate narrowed considerably under the new consensus;
the issues became much more matters of technique and detail rather
than broad policy.
It seems that all sides have recognized (with different degrees of
regret) that times have fundamentally changed in Finland. Most parties
seem to sense the permanence of postindustrial society and its rejection
of temperance and abstinence.
At the same time, all sides now realize that modernity is not a process
of replacing old values and structures with new and improved ones.
Rather modern and traditional values regarding alcohol tend to coexist
cheek-by-jowl with one another; traditional patterns of drinking are not
replaced, but endure and are even magnified. One is reminded of Joseph
Schumpeter on the process of economic modernization (cited in Bendix
1964, p. 10~:
Social structures, types and attitudes are coins that do not readily melt. Once
they are formed they persist, possibly for centuries, and since different structures
and types display different degrees of ability to survive, we almost always find
that actual group and national behavior more or less departs from what we
should expect it to be if we tried to infer it from the dominant forms of the
productive process.
The dominant form of the productive process to which Schumpeter
refers can be for our case that the shift is a predominance of rural to
industrial occupational structures undergirded and overlaid by the values
of localism, religious fundamentalism, and an ethic of work productivity,
thrift, and abstemiousness. This shift, which has been occurring for quite
a number of decades in many Western societies (and for a very much
shorter period in Finland), is defined as a marked decline in agricultural
labor, then stabilization of the industrial sector, and finally rapid growth
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The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
249
in the service sector (happening in Finland almost simultaneously). The
traditional values are ultimately displaced by the values of consumption,
leisure, and emancipation from restrictions on such matters as drinking,
sexual conduct, and other areas of private life.
The current period in Finland represents something of a retreat from
the heady optimism of the 1960s and not just for alcohol policy. In fact,
the rate of growth has slowed considerably, and the general debate
concerning the wisdom of rapid, continuous growth espoused by nearly
all parties during the 1960s is heard in Finland as elsewhere. Further,
there is assimilation by the younger generation (and likely not just
because they are becoming older and the normal age-related decline in
rates of alcohol consumption has begun to set in).
These changes have brought something of a cultural reassessment and
social retrenchment. A central tenet of cultural modernism is that mod-
ern men and women should be free from the burden of tradition. Though
there are clear differences between societies, the triumph of the indi-
vidual from moral restraints has been a broad cultural theme of the
West. This triumph occurred at the same time as general social security
provisions for the entire society were being strengthened, and society's
share of consumption in the form of taxes and control of economic
activity increased dramatically. Nevertheless, for the modernist the in-
dividual was to be free of restrictive social norms aimed at closely shaping
his or her personal life-style.
It would be a serious mistake to see the shift in Finland regarding
alcohol policy as a return to earlier traditional positions. Those who
supported the liberalization measures have on balance prevailed. The
principle of individual freedom from onerous and restrictive alcohol
policy measures anchored in conflicts over societal status has been firmly
established.
The old traditional-modern split seems to be in a process of replace-
ment by one that represents different issues in postindustrial culture.
In that culture, the fundamental value of individual autonomy in per-
sonal life-style choices remains solidly established, and the goal of closely
determining by legal mechanisms styles of drinking has been firmly
rejected. The central goals for alcohol policy are to shift from proscribing
drinking that is seen as harmful to relying on macro policy and regulatory
mechanisms to prevent harmful aspects from worsening.
One of the surprising implicit areas of agreement that can be faintly
discerned in Finland is the gradual recognition of the benefits of the
Finnish style of drinking. One of the virtues of episodic drinking is that
it minimizes adverse impact on productivity and also minimizes the
effects of more sustained or chronic ingestion on the liver and other
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BEAUCHAMP
physical structures. This view was expressed both by the temperance
movement representatives and alcohol policy researchers.
This is an interesting development. It represents a modified accept-
ance of the goal of freedom for the individual regarding matters of
alcohol use and abandonment of the attempt to directly shape the modal
pattern of drinking in Finland. The traditional and predominantly rural
values that stress abstemious if not abstinent conduct have begun to
disappear. (The parliamentary committee did, however, suggest that as
an educational goal the government should attempt to reduce "admi-
ration for alcohol, and especially drunkenness.") At the same time, the
belief that simply liberalizing measures (and the disappearance of the
earlier stern attitude) would result in an improved situation for alcohol
problems has gone by the board.
What remains is the commitment to liberating individuals from an
excessively restrictive alcohol policy (e.g., rural prohibition) as a basic
principle and, paradoxically, the reappearance of the necessity for broad
aggregate control mechanisms. There is now a growing emphasis on
health and safety issues, which apparently is enlarging the previous
preoccupation with the Finnish drinking style. The attempt to find a
better marriage between alcohol and larger economic policy, especially
income policy, is also a new central part of the alcohol policy debate.
The question of medium beer represents something of a problem for
alcohol policy makers, with the temperance groups anxious to find some
way to retreat from the current widespread availability. But one senses
that medium beer has become a symbolic issue; other than a general
tightening of controls over licensing, the removal of medium beer from
the retail shops will probably not occur. This debate in the Parliament
continues at this writing, with the trend seeming to be one in which the
government is seeking to gain more control over the policy-making
apparatus of ALKO, primarily by strengthening the functions of the
administrative board. The future of alcohol policy in Finland seems to
be an attempt to sort out the new boundaries between personal freedom
and interest in Finnish society so that problems with alcohol can be held
to as low a level as the recognition of this freedom (and other values)
permits.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES
At the first glance, the debate in Finland over alcohol policy seems
remote and over issues that do not concern the United States. The
federal government's power over alcohol policy is a great deal more
limited here than in Finland, and the debate here is conducted in dif-
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The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
251
ferent terms. The evidence that liberalization did have a discernible
impact on alcohol problems is important for the growing discussion of
alcohol policy in the United States, but it does not in itself constitute
decisive evidence. Even in monopoly states there is little onnortunitv
to avail ourselves of these same policy measures.
The principal value of the Finnish experience, beyond the light it
sheds on general issues regarding alcohol availability and other control
measures, may well lie in providing a new conceptual context for the
ongoing debate regarding alcohol and alcohol policy in the United
States.
In the United States, policy measures to restrict the availability of
alcohol or to influence per-capita consumption are seen by some as a
retreat from the values of cultural modernism and a return to rural,
traditional viewpoints viewpoints currently characterized as "neopro-
hibitionism." This characterization might well have applied if these is-
sues had been raised in the period following repeal. Then a call by the
"drys" for a return to, if not prohibition, at least a much more restrictive
control system for alcohol could fairly be interpreted as a victory for
cultural fundamentalism and the "drys."
But almost a generation has passed since repeal, and the post-World
War II generation in the United States grew to maturity protesting
United States involvement in Vietnam, advocating civil rights, and urg-
ing less restrictive measures for drugs such as marijuana. Alcohol policy
per se was off the public agenda in this period of our postindustrial
society.
What we have now, however, is the entry of several new factors in
the debate that may well fuel reconsideration of the postrepeal alco-
hol policy model. What has arisen in postindustrial society is a funda-
mental concern with the quality of the environment, the social costs of
unrestricted growth, inflation, and unchecked consumption. A very
broad and diverse body of support has grown up around the ecology
movement, and there seems to be little diminution of support for this
issue even as its economic impact becomes more manifest. Likewise,
the impact of inflation and expensive and depleting energy sources have
called into question assumptions about the modal personality of postin-
dustrialism, about consumption as a central and relatively unrestricted
right. In the area of health policy specifically, there is increased aware-
ness of the limits of clinical health care and increasing attention to life-
style and environmental hazards.
This means that in postindustrial culture the privacy and anonymity
of the individual has undergone some pressures for alteration. It is true
that this debate still contains many lines of the older traditional-mod-
~ ~ ,
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BEAUCHAMP
ernist conflict. The life-style debate in health policy (Kass 1975, Knowles
1976), for example, is often challenged by some as one more example
of attempts by public health reformers to conduct campaigns of moral
reform.
The dominant view appears to be that there is an appropriate place
for reasonable limits over life-style threats to health. These limits are
likely to be established along the lines of the struggle for consumer or
environmental protection: strong advocacy against certain features of
industrial organization, especially pollution, manufacturing of hazardous
products, and advertising practices.
This emerging concern with the quality of life in postindustrial society
involves a struggle to find a new language for appropriate limits to
consumption behavior, while preserving the gains of postindustrial so-
ciety in abandoning harmful or counterproductive moralistic restraints.
In the preliminary skirmishes between those who advocate a reexami-
nation of alcohol policy and those opposed, the first group attempts to
persuade the second that they are not party to a general programmatic
return to traditional systems restraint, but instead are part of a general
trend within the larger society for heightened concern for environmental
protection, safety in transportation, and consumer protection.
There is no evidence currently available that this particular devel-
opment has occurred in Finland, nor is it necessary for this argument.
The shifts in alcohol policy in Finland can be seen as preliminary skir-
mishes in a larger cultural struggle to define the postindustrial values,
particularly for alcohol. In the earlier period in Finland, the struggle
between traditional and modern values predominated. In the most re-
cent period, this tension has begun to fade (but not to disappear). There
seems to be a readiness at least for a discussion of limits to alcohol
consumption. This indicates the reliance on tax measures and broad
regulatory policy (licensing, limiting ALKO's marketing pressures, ed-
ucation, etc.), but rejection of measures like personal identity cards or
a system of sharply restricted availability. At the same time there is
heightened appreciation of the health benefits of the traditional Finnish
style of drinking and a deepened respect for the inability of available
and acceptable social policy measures to influence this radically.
To Americans this suggests that there is significant value in retaining
our own present structure of alcohol consumption. Ours is an enor-
mously pluralistic structure that shows great variation from region to
region and ethnic group to ethnic group. Nevertheless, a fundamental
attribute of the structure is a modal drinker who either drinks not at all
or very little indeed.
To retain this overall pattern it cannot, however, be treated as an
attempt to closely shape the life-styles for drinkers. That approach,
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The 1969 Alcohol Act in Finland
which is the heritage of the cultural fundamentalism, must be rejected,
and the modernist emphasis on freedom from close restraint and indi-
vidual choice must be firmly upheld. Nevertheless, the government and
others involved in policy should respect the value of this pattern of
alcohol consumption and try to discourage modes of drinking that are
markedly divergent.
The policy implication of this for the United States is that a corner-
stone of alcohol policy might well take the form of attempting not only
to minimize adverse consequences from alcohol consumption, but also
to discourage drinking models that attempt to undermine the dominant
or modal pattern of limited drinking. This should always be undertaken
as an explicit attempt to work out in a new way an appropriate model
for alcohol use that is congruent with the values and dominant images
of postindustrial culture.
253
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
alcohol act
