The Scandinavian countries show that if you do not prohibit completely, but just make people jump through some hoops to get it and/or make it very expensive, it sort of works.
I think Swedes just end up buying more when visiting systembolaget. And students buy van loads on road trips to Germany.
I find that there is much more smoking (including indoor) and drinking in Denmark than most of any other place I lived, or maybe I am just older now and can’t the hangovers are much longer??
Maybe they meant Sweden/Norway only? I'm not sure. I think the alcohol tax in Sweden is like a full 7x higher than Denmark. I could be wrong there. This is second hand from an old co worker, and years out of date.
Yes, I had Iceland, Norway, and Sweden in mind. Iceland is very strict. Denmark is pretty continental in this regard.