Canada may have something to learn from Sweden when it comes to regulating alcohol and legal drugs.
A collaboration between the University of Victoria and an international team of leading alcohol researchers is looking into the importance of applying evidence-based policy to drugs and alcohol.
UVic's Centre for Addictions Research led a research team to investigate the Swedish government's monopoly on alcohol sales.
Adam Sherk, a PhD student with the research team, says they discovered moving alcohol sales from government monopoly to a retail model led to a 20 per cent increase in alcohol consumption.
"Stores tend to have a lower minimum price of alcohol, so those cheap alcoholic drinks tend to be lower when private stores come into the space of where government stores used to be. That has a big driving effect on moving consumption up. Also, there tends to be a lot more alcohol advertising that might also encourage people to drink a bit more."
The report's findings may have implications for local, provincial and federal governments as more Canadian jurisdictions privatize the distribution and sale of alcohol and the recent legalization of cannabis in Canada.