Alcohol Policies in Africa

This paper reviews studies of the patterns of alcohol use and consumption in Africa. It highlights the findings that alcohol consumption has currently been on the increase with the underage and young persons (ages 10 to 25 years) of both sexes predominating. It was also noted that marketing played a critical role in the globalization of patterns of alcohol use among young people with the production of new alcoholic beverages specially designed for youth markets such as wine coolers, alcopops, malternatives, etc. Excessive drinking by youths was also found to be facilitated by free drinks at social occasions. Apart from the pleasure/fun of drinking, damaging health, social and economic consequences were reported which called for urgent public health intervention measures. The paper then reviews alcohol control policies that have been found effective in the industrialized world and recommends the ones relevant to the African culture that could be added to the existing alcohol policies in different African countries.