Posts tagged with "alcohol"

Safe Driving in Sweden

Posted by Marcus Cederström No Comments
Dec 26 2011

It is no secret that alcohol is a big part of the holiday traditions in Sweden for most people. Not all of course, but most. We’ve documented the crayfish tradition in August, replete with alcohol. We’ve even included a few drinking songs. And while this blog does not speak for all of Sweden, we do try to touch on the cultural mainstays of the Swedish way of life. And that includes drinking. For better or worse.

The insurance company Salus Ansvar seems to understand the prevalence of alcohol at the holidays and has created a mobile app to monitor your state of drunkenness. The app has one main goal. To keep people from driving drunk. The main concern is actually not getting into the car right after a party, but instead getting into a car the next morning with alcohol still in your system. A large percentage of Swedes according to Salus Ansvar are unsure whether or not the alcohol has cleared out their system by the time they are ready to drive in the morning. And that can have serious consequences. Especially in Sweden.

Drunk driving laws in Sweden differ quite a bit from those in the US. The legal limit differs from state to state, but I am from Colorado where the legal limit is .08%. That ends up being a couple of drinks. In Sweden though, the laws are much stricter. In fact, four times as strict. The legal limit is .02%. That essentially means one drink and you are done. No more driving. And if you decide to ignore that and pour a few more drinks into your gullet, you can reach what is considered a higher level of drunkenness. With higher penalties.  That level is .10%.

Salus Ansvars app, titled Körklar? (essentially asking you whether you are safe to drive or not and available at the Apple store if you’re interested in checking it out), takes into consideration factors such as your sex, your weight, the amount of drinks, and the time of consumption. All of these factors are computed to give an idea as to how long it takes your body to clear the effects of alcohol from your system.

Of course, this is not perfect. Each person burns alcohol at a different rate, but it is an interesting solution to a problem many Swedes deal with around the holidays. With apps like these though, the fear is always that you get the occasional idiot who instead of using it to safely monitor themselves, tries to reach a new level of drunkenness. Best advice? Be careful. Don’t drive if you’re drinking, no matter what country you’re in, and if you are going to drink, do so in moderation.

With all that said, god jul och gott nytt år!

Monopoly, but just not the board game!

Posted by Katja 5 Comments
Nov 15 2011

As many, if not all of you know, Sweden has a strict monopoly on its alcohol sales. It is only “Systembolaget”, the name of the organization, that is allowed to sell alcohol over 3,5% in all of Sweden.

 

There are a total of 416 stores and 508 agents who are allowed to sell alcohol.

 

When talking about alcohol in Sweden many people believe that, were the monopoly to be taken away, the consumption of alcohol would increase enormously and would be a huge cost to society. Others counter and say that the only reason we still have a monopoly on products such as alcohol is for the government to have a big source of income. And that it wouldn’t really matter at all if people were able to buy alcoholic beverages in supermarkets as they do with other products.

 

Many people who have immigrated to Sweden find it completely ridiculous that there is only one or two stores in a whole city where you can purchase alcohol. Not to mention that on red days Systembolaget is closed. During Halloween for example, all of Systembolaget’s stores in Sweden were closed. People who were planning on partying were extremely frustrated that they had forgotten to buy a lot of spirits the day before and had to settle for low percentage drinks from grocery stores instead.

 

On Systembolagets homepage they have published a short video on their stance on what were to happen if the monopoly was removed. The video is only about 1,5 minutes and in english so it is well worth a look.

 

http://www.systembolagetkampanj.se/forskarrapport_en/

 

There is also a Swedish version for those of you who want to practice you swedish. The two versions are almost identical apart from the fact that they are in different languages. There is also the possibility of subtitles so you can hang along a little more.

 

http://www.systembolagetkampanj.se/forskarrapport/

Friends, alcohol and hot tubs

Posted by Katja 6 Comments
Dec 30 2009

I hope you all had a great X-mas!

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and people have been making plans for a long time, most of all young people. In Sweden people spend Christmas with their families, ie. the grandparents of the mother and then the father. It is also very common that families get divorced once if not more times in Sweden. This leaves a lot of people to visit, be polite to and give presents to during Christmas. Which is why New Year’s Eve is spent with friends of the family. Many feel that Christmastime is a time of obligations and preparation to make everything perfect. New Year’s doesn’t hold as many expectations so people are less stressed, especially when under the influence of alcohol.

A hot topic just before New Year’s Eve amongst teens (tonåringar) is which party you are going to during the evening, a drinking or a non-alcoholic party. Underage youths spread the word about which parties are having alcohol, then deceive their parents about their whereabouts and end up getting so drunk (full) that they can’t remember anything about the past night. New Year’s Eve is also the evening when the most accidents involving fireworks (fyrvärkerier) occur, in the north of Sweden the bone-breaking incidents increase drastically because of the ice. Being drunk won’t help anybody keep their balance when slipping, but that decision is for each and everyone to make for themselves.

A popular tradition up in the north (or any place with snow in Sweden) is to bathe in an outdoor hot tub (badtunna). If you check the translation for the Swedish word badtunna you will find the most exciting translation; a wilderness hot tub. This is not quite true since people in cities have them as well and as long as you don’t count the city to be a wilderness then this translation is not quite correct. People of all ages get to sit in the hot water surrounded by the rising steam. When everybody has gathered their courage they run out into the snow and roll around or run round their house outside naked!! (this is Sweden ^^). Children are usually brave enough to make snow angels (snö änglar) or have a snowball fight (snöbollskrig).

I hope you all (wherever in the world you might be celebrating)  have a really good New Year’s Eve!

Stick It To The System(et)

Posted by Transparent Language 10 Comments
Sep 21 2008

So, I’m half way through this Bill Bryson book “Neither Here Nor There” about his travels in Europe, and it is really interesting to read his observations about Sweden. With some of them I disagree (he thinks that driving even during sunny days with the headlights on is stupid) and with some I totally agree (like what’s up with all this public drunkenness in this country?). Yeah, what’s up with that?

Yes, there are plenty of drunks in public places all over the world, I know that. However, in most countries you also can get alcohol stronger than 3.5% in supermarkets and you don’t have to mortgage your house to buy a bottle of vodka, so you kind of sort of expect people to wander around totally sloshed at odd hours of the day. But not so in Sweden. Here, for anything stronger than 3.5% you have to go to a special government store called “Systembolaget”, alcohol is expensive, yet you can stumble over totally drunk people at 10 in the morning. And Systemet doesn’t even open until 10!

So, what is this Systembolaget anyway? Simply put, it’s a government-controlled monopoly on the importation and sale of alcoholic beverages. And while 2.8% or 3.5% percent beer and cider can be purchased at a local supermarket, anything stronger than that can only be found at Systemet. Say, if you’re making risotto and the recipe calls for half a cup of white wine (as mine does), you can’t just saunter over to a nearby supermarket and pick up a bottle. Oh, no. You need to go to Systemet. Which closes at 6PM. So if doing any gourmet cooking in Sweden, it’s best to be prepared. Consider yourself warned.

And how did it all start? Well, in 1850 alcohol began to be regulated by the state. Apparently, earlier in history Swedes had become famous for their drinking prowess, and things started to get a little out of hand. Back in the olden days, almost every household made their own booze, too. And the state realized that wow, not only people are walking around drunk, but we’re missing a superb revenue source. So let’s take over alcohol making and selling and tell people where and when to buy it and drink it. The scheme was so successful that by 1870 there was a chain of stores selling booze and all profits went to the government. And it’s been going on like that until now.

Sometime in the mid 1950s, it was also decided that alcoholic beverages should be taxed according to their alcohol content, which makes beer and wine (relatively) cheap.

Systemet looks like a normal supermarket inside, except that all it sells is alcohol. You get a basket, or a cart, and walk around picking up whatever you want. No brand can be favored over another, so everything is lined up on the shelves, or in crates on the floor, and bottles are not refrigerated (because according to the rule, you have to either refrigerate all of them, or none.) And oh yeah, you need to be over 20 to buy stuff there.

And remember what I said about drinks with less than 3.5% being sold in normal stores. Here’s something that may confuse English speakers. Such beer is known here as “lätt” which translates as “light”, but not in the American sense. It has all the calories of a normal beer, and the adjective “lätt” refers only to its alcohol content. And to buy “light” beer you need to be over 18.

Systemet even has an English language webpage, and this is one of the gems I found on there:

Systembolaget, the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly, exists for one reason only: To minimize alcohol-related problems by selling alcohol in a responsible way, without profit motive.

Oh yeah? If that is so, then they’re not doing a very good job of it, judging by all the drunks in the streets.
You can read more about Systemet on their website.

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