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Ever wonder why there is so many ferries going between Helsinki and Tallinn? Well.. both Finland and Estonia are in the EU, therefore you can bring as much alcohol from there as you want. It's a helluva lot cheaper. You can rent a van or an 18-wheeler and take a trip there, they even have alcohol retail stores with ramps and forklifts ready to load booze for you.
Every time the Finnish govt raises alcohol taxes, they just lose more and more business from the govt owned Alko to retailers south of the pond. It sends "a message", but it does not reduce consumption at all, and makes the govt in fact lose tax revenue.
Given the hordes of 'poor people' I see still shelling out 5 to 10 bucks a day for cigarettes (and what passes for priorities in this country), I can definitely say that charging more for stuff like that doesn't really deter a lot of people from buying it. They will just spend money they should have spent on something more responsible on the booze.
I am told by a friend who chose public health for his medical specialization that the literature pretty solidly backs the effectiveness in taxes as a consumption reducer. ("Undisputed" was the word he used.)
I seem to remember something similar from basic public health classes myself. A quick search of the literature seem to support the notion as well.
Moldovans drink the most, 18 liters of alcohol per year.
By comparison, Norwegians, on average, only consume about 7.5 liters of alcohol per year.
But you should be there the day they drink it!
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