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This is how much Danes drink and smoke

The Local Denmark
The Local Denmark - [email protected]
This is how much Danes drink and smoke
Liquor and cigarette sales were both up in 2015. Photo: Brian Bergmann/Scanpix

New consumer statistics show Danes are buying more hard liquor and cigarettes than in previous years.

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Danish consumers purchased some 45 million litres of pure alcohol in 2015, according to figures released by Statistics Denmark on Tuesday
 
The amount itself was basically the same as in 2014, but a further breakdown shows that sales of spirits were up slightly to 1.4 litres of pure alcohol per inhabitant, while sales of beer and wine were down. 
 
Beer and wine are still the Danes’ alcoholic beverages of choice, however. They account for 82 percent of all sales, while spirits account for 17.5 percent and so-called ‘alcopops’ made up just 0.7 percent of sales. 
 
“The 7.8 litres of pure alcohol that each Dane on average bought in 2015 is the equivalent of ten drinks per week, when one drink equals 1.5 centilitres of pure alcohol,” Statistics Denmark wrote. “That is a slight fall in comparison to 2010, when each resident purchased an average of 10.8 drinks per week.”
 
While alcohol sales were down, cigarette sales were up for the first time in five years. In 2015, there were 5.8 billion cigarettes sold in Denmark, a nearly three percent increase over the previous year. 
 
The Danish Health Authority (Sundhedsstyrelsen) is due to release a new strategy later this month to phase out smoking nationwide. According to an internal document obtained by Politiken, the agency will propose increased tobacco levies, plain-label packaging for cigarettes and legislation that will force stores to place tobacco products out of plain view. 
 

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