ALCOHOL

Relationships among production, distribution, and consumption of alcohol - From 1800 to 1945

Relationships among production, distribution, and consumption of alcohol - From 1800 to 1945

Americans steadily drank more and more whiskey during the early 1800s as supply increased and price tumbled. The annual per capita consumption of distilled spirits in 1830 was five gallons--nearly five times the amount people consume today. Like rum, whiskey was legal tender. People bartered with whiskey, paid their taxes with whiskey, and on some occasions, paid their ministers' salaries with whiskey. It was also a dietary staple because the supply of other beverages was unreliable and water sometimes carried disease.

Liquor and socializing were closely entwined. Taverns and inns served as important community centers. They sheltered and fed travelers and often served as the local trading post, post office, auction house, courtroom, polling place, recruiting and militia office, stage coach depot, and liquor retailer. As community gathering spots, they encouraged patrons to drink and smoke--often and in great quantities.

As whiskey consumption accelerated, drunkenness increased so markedly that it caused widespread community complaint and commentary. Family violence also became a more visible fact of life. Accounts of inebriate mothers neglecting their children spread, but these stories were outnumbered by incidents of wife and child beating (Babor, 2010). These social ills coupled with rising incidents of alcohol-related illnesses alarmed many Americans, giving rise to a temperance movement between 1820 and 1850.

At the national level, the degree of formal legal controls on alcohol consumption may be a major source of explanation of national differences in consumption. For example, substantial increases in the national level of alcohol consumption were found in Sweden following the abolition of laws that had reduced alcohol sales. However, no concrete evaluation of the impact of alcohol policy laws on cirrhosis, alcohol consumption on cirrhosis, or the impact of socio-economic variables on either consumption or cirrhosis has been made. These 1979 data from 16 countries allow for cross-national analysis. Davis did not report a quantitative analysis of the relation of law policy scores with consumption or cirrhosis, but his qualitative assessment concluded that nations with strong alcohol control policies tended to have lower than average consumption, while those with weaker alcohol controls tended to have higher than average consumption. Over time, alcohol consumption can change due to changes in individual level decisions, rather than changes in formal social controls.

Unless national differences in the mean level of alcohol consumption per capita reflect differences in the prevalence of heavy drinkers, the consumption statistic might not be a good predictor of cirrhosis mortality. Unless the prevalence of heavy drinking also rose with increases in consumption, two populations with the same level of per capita consumption could have very different levels of cirrhosis mortality. This would be the case if country A had many heavy drinkers and many abstainers, while country B had few heavy drinkers and few abstainers. However, data from 14 nations indicates that the proportion of heavy drinking consumers appears to be approximately proportional to the ...