Alcohol consumption in Latvia – “silver medal” in the world. Official statistics: a hundred years ago Latvians drank twice as little.
Guntis Ščerbinskis/Latvijas Avīze
Photo: Screenshot from LTV
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) lists the Cook Islands, which have fewer than 10 000 inhabitants, but are usually full of tourists, at the top of the list for per capita alcohol consumption.
“Is Latvia ranked 2nd, 12th or 22nd on this list?” was the question that the participants in the LTV erudition game V. I.P. had to answer in September. The correct answer is revealed in this article, but we will explain how the amount of alcohol consumed is measured and how to interpret these numbers.
“Biggest drinkers in the world”, “Latvia at the top of the list”, “Latvia has become the world leader in alcohol consumption” – these headlines appear regularly in the media. The leadership of our country in terms of the consumption of alcohol is regularly confirmed by various international organisations, such as the OECD, the World Health Organisation (WHO) or the aforementioned CIA. Many other studies, not just the number of litres drunk per capita, also show that Latvians are drinking too much, according to the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (SPKC), which monitors the situation in this field in our country. A meeting of the National Council on Alcohol Control this spring even concluded that drinking in Latvia has reached epidemic levels.
However, these numbers are regarded with a certain amount of disbelief in some parts of society.
Discussions on social media have shown a widespread assumption that Latvian alcohol consumption is boosted by Estonians, Finns and other tourists attracted by better prices. The perception that foreigners are to blame is also sometimes perpetuated by lobbyists for the alcohol industry, especially when restrictions on alcohol distribution are on the political agenda.
It should also be said that restrictions on the sale of alcohol are not very popular in Latvian society. For example, a 2016 citizens’ initiative for stricter alcohol restrictions on Mana balss platform gathered only 665 supporters. This also illustrates the perception that drinking is not so crazy here yet, or that it is not really a problem.
Islander record
Halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, similar winds blow in the South Pacific tourist paradise – the Cook Islands. “An unflattering record: the Cook Islands have the world’s biggest drinkers,” wrote local publication Cook Islands News in November 2021, reporting the biggest consumption of alcohol per islander. The publication was widely commented on social media. Most locals call the WHO data simply “bullshit!”.
In social media discussions, people point out that the Cook Islands have a permanent population of just under 10 000, so the drinking statistics are heavily influenced by the high number of tourists and their drinking habits. Only a few people, in their own reflections, admit that excessive drinking is indeed a big problem in the Pacific Islands.
However, a review of the Cook Islands media reveals a large amount of information on drink-driving, tragic drink-driving accidents, repeat drink-driving convictions, and violent crimes committed while drunk. And only a fraction of this is related to tourists. Official statistics show that half of all car and motorcycle accidents on the islands are caused by drunk drivers.
The country’s alcohol policy guidelines state that around half of the adult population and a third of young people aged between 13 and 17 drink alcohol.
Adult drinkers consume as much as 20.8 litres of pure alcohol per year. The Cook Islands Ministry of Health is raising the alarm about the increase in non-communicable diseases, where alcohol is a major factor.
Latvian “silver”
The correct answer to the question in V. I.P. is that the CIA’s World Factbook ranks Latvia second only to the Cook Islands in alcohol consumption for 2019. According to this data, the average person in Latvia drinks 12.9 litres of absolute alcohol per year, while the average person in the Cook Islands drinks almost 13 litres per year. More than half (7.07 l) of the absolute alcohol consumed by the islanders was consumed in the form of strong drinks, while in Latvia beer (4.9 l) and wine (1.7 l) accounted for a slight majority.
Going back in Latvian history, around 100 years ago, according to official data, Latvians drank twice as little.
Then, as now, only legally traded alcohol was included in the statistics. In 1928, 6.25 litres of pure alcohol were sold per adult in Latvia, in 1936 – 6.55 litres, and in 1938 – 8.45 litres.
As noted in the collection of the Institute of Latvian History “Alcohol consumption 1918-1940” (by Ineta Lipša), statisticians at the time admitted that it was impossible to determine the total consumption of alcohol in Latvia because “inhabitants of country houses and villages (but not towns and cities) were allowed to make beer for their own use, so it was rarely bought in the countryside. In Latgale in particular, home-brewing increased, which was strengthened with tobacco, wild rosemary, denatured alcohol, diluted soap medicine and sold illegally”.
The brewing of moonshine was so popular in inter-war Latvia that in Latgale, which was not considered the most moderate region, the official numbers for adult vodka consumption in 1929 were only 2.58 litres, compared with 5.25 litres in other regions of the country.
Back to the present day and compared to neighbours, Lithuania and Estonia also rank high in alcohol consumption. Accordingly, in the CIA world ranking, Lithuanians are fourth with 11.3 litres of absolute alcohol per capita per year, while Estonians are seventh (11.65 l).
But, as already mentioned, not everyone is convinced by these numbers.
Tourists contribute around one litre per year
Experts point out that alcohol consumption is a general concept. In detail, it can include different indicators – recorded absolute alcohol consumption including tourist absolute alcohol consumption (per capita or per person aged 15 years or over), recorded absolute alcohol consumption excluding absolute alcohol consumption by tourists, and unrecorded absolute alcohol consumption. The measurement of litres of alcohol consumed by tourists is complex. Indeed, no one registers the purchaser of each bottle. The calculation of the total volume consumed is made using several data sources.
At the end of the year, when the necessary data are available, total alcohol consumption is adjusted by the absolute alcohol consumption of tourists, explains the SPKC.
The calculation formula takes into account the consumption by foreign tourists in Latvia and the consumption of alcohol by Latvian residents abroad.
The estimates are based on the SRS study on sales of alcoholic beverages in the Latvian-Estonian border area, data from the Estonian Institute of Economic Research, CIA data on the number of foreign tourists to Latvia and the average number of nights spent in Latvian accommodation, WHO and OECD data on absolute alcohol consumption, and CIA data on Latvian residents’ leisure and business trips abroad and the average length of the trip. So, by putting all these factors together according to a certain methodology, the alcohol consumption by tourists in Latvia is obtained. Accordingly, subtracting the amount drunk by tourists from the total litres sold in Latvia gives the “net” average of the Latvian population.
However, even after this subtraction, the volume of alcohol we drink is not declining as much as we would like. For example, in 2022, the average person in Latvia over the age of 15 drank 11.9 litres of absolute alcohol, excluding tourists, and 12.8 litres including tourists.
The share of illegal alcohol is falling
It should also be noted that the official SPKC statistics do not include consumption of unregistered or illegal alcohol, so we can safely assume that the amount of alcohol drunk per capita is even higher than the official numbers with or without tourists.
The WHO 2024 Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health states that unrecorded alcohol consumption accounts for 21% of total alcohol consumption worldwide.
The international organisation estimates that the consumption of unrecorded absolute alcohol in Latvia in 2019 (three-year average) was 1.5 litres.
The International Journal of Drug Policy published a study in 2023, which surveyed 49 000 people in 33 European countries. It concluded that the total alcohol consumption per person aged 15 and over in Latvia in 2020 was around 13 litres of absolute alcohol, of which 6.3% was unrecorded.
As noted by the SPKC, data from the study on the prevalence of addictive substance use show a steady decline in both the proportion of unregistered alcohol consumed annually and the proportion of the population involved in the circulation of unregistered alcohol: “We can therefore conclude that the importance of unregistered alcohol in society is declining.”
“To judge the overall situation in the country, one cannot look at just one indicator, but must look at both the consumption of alcohol and the consequences of alcohol consumption,” adds SPKC. “And, gathering the available indicators, alcohol consumption in Latvia as a whole is considered to be high. The problem is reflected not only in the recorded alcohol consumption, but also in the data on alcohol-related harm and economic losses.”
Reference
Facts about drinking in Latvia
- One in five pregnant women in Latvia has consumed alcohol at least once during her pregnancy.
- 55.7% of orphan’s and custody court decisions on termination of parental care or custody of a child and separation of a child from the family in 2021 and 2022 were related to parental alcohol abuse.
- 1.3 – 1.8% of the country’s gross domestic product is accounted for by total direct and indirect costs related to alcohol use.
- Almost 60 deaths per 100 000 people in 2021 were from diseases directly related to alcohol consumption.
- Since 2020, the number of first registrations (per 100 000 people) of patients with mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol use has been gradually increasing.
- Almost 80% of the Latvian population (83.5% of men and 75.7% of women) have consumed alcohol in the last 12 months.
- 36.5% of the Latvian population (aged 15–74 years) have consumed at least 60 grams of absolute alcohol per drink in the last year, which is risky drinking.
Sources: SPKC, Survey of health habits of the Latvian population (2022), Study on alcohol consumption, its consequences and economic benefits of prevention in Latvia (2023), etc.
Reference
World’s top ten drinkers
Alcohol consumption in litres per capita per year; 2019 data
- Cook Islands 12.97 l
- Latvia 12.9 l
- Czech Republic 12.73 l
- Lithuania 11.93 l
- Austria 11.9 l
- Antigua and Barbuda 11.88 l
- Estonia 11.65 l
- France 11.44 l
- Bulgaria 11.18 l
- Slovenia 11.05 l
Source: CIA World Factbook
