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. 2020 May 15;17(10):3454.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17103454.

Review of the Lithuanian Alcohol Control Legislation in 1990-2020

Laura Miščikienė  1   2 , Nijolė Goštautaitė Midttun  3   4 , Lukas Galkus  1 , Gražina Belian  5 , Janina Petkevičienė  1   6 , Justina Vaitkevičiūtė  1 , Mindaugas Štelemėkas  1   6
Affiliations

Review of the Lithuanian Alcohol Control Legislation in 1990-2020

Laura Miščikienė et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, Lithuania has experienced an increasing level of alcohol consumption and a heavy burden of alcohol-related harm, which is associated with the development of alcohol policies. The aim of this analysis was to provide a chronology of change of Lithuanian alcohol control legislation and to present several other detailed examples of the political processes. The data were collected using document reviews. During the last three decades, the Lithuanian alcohol control policies have undergone several cycles of stricter control and liberalizations. Some of the limitations of the study are the exceptional focus on the public health perspective and the inclusion of policies targeting the population as a whole. The strength of the study is in providing a detailed background for future policy effectiveness studies. Some of the recent periods when a series of 'best buy' interventions were implemented during a short period are of particular importance, constituting a natural experiment, whose effects need to be studied in more detail in the future.

Keywords: alcohol; alcohol policy; legislation; policy process.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Timeline of Lithuanian alcohol control policies listed up by the policy category. Note: numbers in the figure reflect the listed reference numbers; green color indicates stricter policy measures; red—liberalization; grey—uncertain/difficult to attribute.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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