31
votes
Denmark is to restrict the sale of alcohol to under-eighteens and increase the price of suckable nicotine sachets, as their growing popularity is worrying health authorities
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Denmark to restrict sale of alcohol to young people
- Published
- Nov 14 2023
- Word count
- 284 words
I don't believe teen drinking is actually on the rise, but I'm willing to change my mind if someone points me to data that proves otherwise. What I'm unsure about is the motive behind some politicians complaining about youth drinking and making a problem out of it, as the only thing I can think of is catering to voters who have forgotten what they themselves were like when they were young (forgetting we behaved much worse than today's youth!), but just want to complain about unruly youngsters - and the media is going with the story.
But yes, there was a significant increase in alcohol sales for 2021 across all generations, however this also coincides with many restrictions from the corona shutdown being lifted. The year after, 2022, alcohol sales dropped significantly again.
Lets look at the total population. We can then separate the number of 15-19 year olds and compare it to sales of alcohol for PopulationTotal and Population15-19 and see if it has actually increased or not. You may ask "what about private brewing and distilling?", which is a fair question - however, Denmark doesn't have a tradition for home brewing as alcohol is readily available for sale in all supermarkets (unlike e.g. Sweden and Finland, where home brewing is more common).
The cashiers are usually aged 15 to <18, i.e. it's not a problem to buy alcohol as the cashiers often won't ID-check their class mates and friends, the very same people they will be drinking with next weekend.
Anyway, back to the subject:
I've pulled the data for total alcohol sales across all age groups, alcohol sales for the group 0 to 18, and subtracted the two from each other, then multiplied up the sales for the age group 15-19 as I have made the assumption that the age group 0-14 doesn't drink (or at least drinks so little that it doesn't notable affect the numbers).
The only conclusion I can come to is that drinking among the Danish youth isn't on the rise. On contrary, it has been on a downward trend since year 2000, at least, with just a single anomaly in 2021. That anomaly is most likely caused by corona restrictions being lifted and many wanted to party. The year after, 2022, alcohol sales were slightly below 2020 and significantly lower than sales in 2018.
**
Click for data table for alcohol sales for teenagers 15-19 from 2000 to 2022
All the numbers are from Statistics Denmark (Danmarks Statistik) and is an official government institute under the Agency for Digital Government (Ministeriet for Digitalisering).
Perhaps we do drink more than our neighbours and some people do have a drinking problem. But the trajectory is trending downward already, so why are some politicians invested in making it into a much bigger problem than (I think) it really is?
Personally, and I say this without having bothered to look into the data for it, I think nicotine products, gambling, and payday loans are all much more important issues that should be addressed - I can't for the life of it understand why commercials for gambling and payday loans are allowed in public and inside public transportation, when I think we all have an idea about which demographic they target.
It occurred to me while writing a follow-up, I wonder if this might be because Denmark no longer has a religious political party (Kristendemokraterne) in parliament and thus their politicians and leanings have been absorbed by other parties that are taken more seriously? In the past they would have been ignored, but being a member of a large politician party could maybe have given them more legitimacy than before and make a journalist bother listen to them... <sigh> politics... See, that's why I love animals: you never have to second-guess them for ulterior motives đ
Okay, last update and then I think I'm completely done.
So I think I have tracked down the original source for the current crusade against youth's alcohol use. The Danish Cancer Society (KrĂŚftens BekĂŚmpelse) and TrygFonden, a non-profit subsidiary of the insurance company Tryg, have been collecting and publishing data on youths consumption of alcohol for many years. Their latest publishment is from April 2022 (Danish) and covers the data they gathered during Autumn 2021 - and I'm guessing that it has just recently gotten attention from policy makers.
Notice how their data is from 2021? That's the same year I mentioned above, being an anomaly that coincides with the corona restrictions being lifted, as most of Denmark was shut down and quarantining during 2020. The year after, 2022, alcohol sales dropped back to normal.
IMHO it's a storm in a glass of water over one anomalous year during very exceptional circumstances.
Additionally I'm not sure what the harm of nicotine sachets is. It's probably one of the safest ways to consume nicotine. I'm not sure how it is in Denmark, but having lived in Sweden, the only thing I'm opposed to is advertising nicotine products.
I would hazard a guess that they increase the chances of getting mouth cancer, much like chewing tobacco does.
Perhaps someone could look up the literature, but last I checked the rates of mouth cancer for modern synthetic nicotine should be low, as the carcinogens predominantly come from tobacco and not nicotine. Really the main issue with nicotine itself (aside from how addictive it is) revolves around the effects on your blood pressure. It causes vasoconstriction, which in turn causes hypertension and can worsen outcomes in patients that already have HTN at baseline
This is my understanding as well. Other things in nicotine sachets could be a cause for concern, like certain artificial sweeteners, but the nicotine itself isnât worrisome.
The P65 warning on a can of Velo (US version) with the older packing - theyâve recently updated it to look more like the EU version of the product but itâs still nowhere near as good - indicates nicotine may cause birth defects or other reproductive harm but not cancer.
Relatedly, I donât recall seeing a ânicotine may cause cancerâ warning on a traditional NRT product.
It's possible but not necessarily true, as far as I'm aware nicotine cessation products like lozenges and gum don't increase risks of oral cancer. I think it's true that these pouches irritate your gums and can probably cause other problems.
The popularity of dip in the Nordic countries has baffled me ever since I learned of it. I grew up in the US with a pretty strong "tobacco=poor/low class" association, but I can at least acknowledge that smoking a cigarette can look cool. But dip? Absolutely bottom of the barrel for coolness and class.
Football players use it, and football players are idolized all across Europe. The presentation is also slicker - in the US, chewing tobacco is associated with tins and rotten gums, like you said, it has connotations with poverty. But Swedish snus come in much slicker packets, and evade much of that reputation.
It's true football players are idolized across Europe, but the snus thing isn't Europe-wide, so I think there's something deeper at play there.
I was under the impression snus was sold in similar little circular tins in Norway as in the US, but that may well vary between countries. I just remember my wife showing me a meme where a Norwegian hick had a snus tin pattern of wear in his jeans pocket
Is nicotine itself deleterious to oral mucosae or is it the other snuffy stuff? Like if there was pure nicotine, is that per se bad for oral health?
Long time nic pouch user, former dipper turned snuser. Not a dentist or medical professional.
Nic pouches arenât eating through my gums like grizzly long cut did, but I think having anything regularly pressed against your gums is bound to lead to gum issues. Iâm not confirming this - someone correct me if Iâm wrong - but I think labret piercings can cause gum issues too?
My partner had a labret piercing for ~10 years and had to get reconstructive surgery on her gums because of it.
No. Nicotine is relatively harmless by itself.
Was gonna say, I wonder if nicotine toothpaste (with the obligatory sodium fluoride active ingredient) would be anymore objectionable than charcoal toothpaste WITHOUT said essential constituent ingredient ;)
Does anyone have any idea why teen drinking is on such an increase? This regulation sounds like a bandaid over something else.
Well, off the top of my head anecdotally,
1.) Increased Isolation following the Coronavirus Pandemic.
2.) A lack of future opportunity globally. (Increases in regional conflict, growing isolationist sentiment from major regional powers i.e. U.S. , U.K. , China, Russia, Israel)
3.) The looming issue of climate change, and it's implications to the human race.
4.) Social Media creating further arenas for interpersonal conflict, FOMO, and doomscrolling.
5.) Access to global media allowing a user to view uncomfortable media constantly. (Doomscrolling)
6.) Lack of political will to improve things.
7.) Constant Surveillance. (Adults in particular being able to track their children with cell tracking)
8.) Constant Connectivity, especially for younger people.
This leads to a global sense of malaise and futility as a result of these other issues, leading to some choosing alcohol as a coping mechanism.
Really, times are pretty bad, and young people are sensitive to that. Hilariously, these are just the Anglo-sphere ones, I could add another dozen for the states.
This is all just knee-jerk reactionary behavior in response to a symptom, rather than attempting avenues for improving the human condition.
Cuz they know if they fuck up or the more likely option of never getting started, they're likely still fucked in every economic sense well-before they would have access to any remedy that might help them turn things around.
Edit: the me generation is living way too long artificially and "the system" has been designed with that in mind. In the sense that it completely ignores the realities imposed by such a state of affairs. Its sad too, cuz it sucks to think this way but, like Madonna, we live in a material world of scarcity and little security. Unlike them