History
Historically, Sweden was a poor country with a comparably low standard of living. Although it is a member of the vodka belt and has a tradition of wide spread tobacco use, other drugs were rarely used until the mid-20th century. The 19th century saw the rise of the temperance movement, alongside the free churches and the labour movement. State alcohol rationing, state monopoly on retail stores in alcohol, and temperance boards in the municipalities were introduced around the First World War. This decreased alcohol use to a level that was low through the 1930s, during the world wide economic crises. The temperance boards continued to exist after alcohol rationing ended in 1955.
Read more about this topic: Drug Policy Of Sweden
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)