Interesting article from the Economist
THE world drank the equivalent of 6.1 litres of pure alcohol per person in 2005, according to a report from the World Health Organisation published on February 11th. The biggest boozers are found in Europe and in the former Soviet states. Moldovans are the most bibulous, getting through 18.2 litres each, nearly 2 litres more than the Czechs in second place. Over 10 litres of a Moldovan's annual intake is reckoned to be 'unrecorded' home-brewed liquor, making it particularly harmful to health. Such moonshine accounts for almost 30% of the world's drinking. The WHO estimates that alcohol results in 2.5m deaths a year, more than AIDS or tuberculosis. In Russia and its former satellite states one in five male deaths is caused by drink.
I’d like to add that institutions like the WHO, whom has called for stronger “alcohol control policies” appears to have forgotten about the epic regulatory failure in the “Volstead Act” or the US alcohol prohibition law of the 1920s.
Such prohibition, also known as ‘the Noble experiment’, according to wikipedia.org, “stimulated the proliferation of rampant underground, organized and widespread criminal activity” which eventually led to its repeal.
Noble intentions will never rescind the laws of demand and supply.
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