When I read this my first thought was something like, "I bet that those who don't drink are making a bit of profit on the side by selling their allowances." However, I'm guessing that for Svalbard's dedicated drinkers ...they're finding a way around the import restrictions.

It would be interesting to hear how folks deal with the restrictions by someone that lives on Svalbard or has spent significant time there.

If you don't mind the higher price I'm sure you can still import it as long as you pay the duty. (The linked page merely says that you cannot import tax-free.) So ultimately it's the same situation as in (the rest of) Norway, but with some small allowance of cheaper tax-free alcohol. If they didn't have the quotas, people would arbitrage it.

So a bottle of wine, a six pack, five shots, every week.

Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

I believe that there are studies that show that amount of alcohol significantly reduces life expectancy.

24 bottles of liquor, 6 bottles of fortified wines, nearly 300 cans of beer, and unlimited wine annually is low? I'd hate to be the liver of anybody drinking that much.

Looking at the numbers on a smaller scale, if you don't count the unlimited wine, the monthly quota works out to be about 2.2 drinks / night - about 1.5 shouts of liquor and less than 1 light beer a night.

Thats a pretty resonable amount of alcohol to consume - just slightly higher than the 14 drinks / week maximum that many health authorities recommend.

How would you feel if the government regulated how much sugar or salt you can eat, how many hours of video games you can play, or maybe even forced you to exercise 400 hours (per year)?

That's actually an interesting idea... Not saying I'd recommend it, but I'd be interested in how this affects a population at a large scale.

Requiring physical activity might lead to population demand for parks, more social interaction, less isolationism, less conflict. And I've had times where a hard limit on video games would've been nice. Incentivizing a society to not fall to their vices doesn't sound too bad.

Adults of legal drinking age can choose not to drink or to drink in moderation by limiting intake to 2 drinks or less in a day for men and 1 drink or less in a day for women, when alcohol is consumed. Drinking less is better for health than drinking more.

2/day is a recommended upper bound, applied on days where alcohol is consumed. Not the same as "you can drink 2/day year -round without consequence."

One reason this would be bad is there is actually very little evidence that salt is bad for you. It's entirely possible most people don't get enough salt.

Being a remote town in the far north with unusual day/nighy cycles does require some strange laws to keep everyone safe and sane I guess.

Also, Tom has been there ofc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFJ-ze2-SqU

That's not quite what it says. Firearms are only a recommendation.

> Due to the polar bear threat in Svalbard, anyone travelling outside the settlements must be equipped with appropriate means of frightening and chasing off polar bears.

> The Governor of Svalbard also recommends having firearms with you.

A handgun may well not have the stopping power. But something like pepper spray (bear mace) might.

If a polar bear is charging me, I want his ancestors to feel what I'm going to do to him.

I believe it became less popular with the popular revolutions of 1848 and the advent of universal conscription.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/268dmc/how_w...

Crossbows on the other hand were practically banned, but this was more because a highly skilled longbowman was more deadly

So it's not like people are going around shooting up polar bears for fun or anything :)

https://www.angloinfo.com/how-to/qatar/lifestyle/food-drink/...

EDIT: yes article mentions this

The letter must be addressed to the Qatar Distribution Company, be stamped and signed by an authorised person within the company, and include the following information:

  The applicant's position within their company
  The applicant's basic salary. The word 'basic' must be used.   To get a permit a minimum salary is needed (4,000 riyals or 1,100 US dollars)
  Whether the applicant receives an accommodation entitlement or has free accommodation
  Whether the applicant is married
  When applying for a permit an individual must fill in an application form, pay a returnable deposit and state their religion

Looking at the situation now though, it looks like it might be a very tiny bit more liberal, in that you still need a "personal consumption licence", but the quota appears to have been done away with.

Meanwhile, the Swedes go to Denmark for cheap alcohol, the Danes go to Germany, the Germans to Poland and the Poles to Ukraine. Thus Ukraine is the fixed point of the alcohol-flow function. This theorem was proven when I was a PhD student in a research group which contained a Norwegian, a Swede, a German, a Pole and a Ukrainian - we extrapolated the Danish connection point.

“While part of the Kingdom of Norway since 1925, Svalbard is not part of geographical Norway; administratively, the archipelago is not part of any Norwegian county, but forms an unincorporated area administered by a governor appointed by the Norwegian government, and a special jurisdiction subject to the Svalbard Treaty that is outside of the Schengen Area, the Nordic Passport Union and the European Economic Area.”