Alkoholio kontrolės politikos įgyvendinimas Lietuvoje: vietos savivaldos lygmuo ; Alcohol control policy implementation in Lithuania: municipal level

Abstract

In recent years, it was began to talk more about alcohol harm to human and society. It happened because of new data appearance, which have shown that Lithuania ranks in third place of alcohol consumption per capita in Europe. WHO warns that alcohol consumption is one the most important factor of health damage and one of the key elements of the risk of early death. This organization suggests to use alcohol limiting measures for country governments. All these measures are divided by their effectiveness and scientific validity. The main aim of this study was to analyze and evaluate alcohol control policy in Lithuania on municipal level. In the first chapter evidence-based policy making is analyzing. There are provided such policy conception, types of evidence and evidence-based policy limitations. In the second chapter, conception of alcohol control policy and effective measures of alcohol limitation are provided. Third chapter is intended to legal regulation of Lithuanian alcohol policy and applicable alcohol limitation measures. Equally, government and municipal authorities which implements alcohol control policy are described. The last chapter of this study consists of qualitative and quantitative researches. Their aim was to determine and analyze opinion of society and qualified specialists about alcohol availability limitation measures and their implementation on municipal level. After the analysis of public and local government representatives reviews the recommendations for alcohol control policy development there introduced. All in all, it turned out that alcohol control is well regulated in Lithuania. There are plenty of legislation of alcohol control, but the main one of them is Law on Alcohol Control of the Republic of Lithuania. In this law the main alcohol limitation measures which are implemented by a wide network of various institutions are described. Some of these measures are allocated to municipal authorities. Attitudes of public and qualified specialists' representatives to alcohol limitation measures are positive. However, on behalf of this research, it turned out that portion of these measures are not effective and should be improved. Public opinion was to pay more attention to educational activities on alcohol harm to make alcohol policy more effective. On the other hand, qualified specialists stated that retail trade in alcohol licensing procedures should be improved, fines for non-compliance of alcohol policy should be increased, the political will must be developed, supervision of alcohol control should be passed to Department of Narcotics, Tobacco and Alcohol Control and funding for institutions which implement alcohol control should be increased on purpose to make alcohol control policy more effective.