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Comment by murrayhenson | Hacker News Reader

Maybe that the quotas are very low, or that there are quotas at all. Mainland Norway definitely doesn't have quotas like this; rather alcohol is simply made to be quite expensive.

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.

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> Mainland Norway definitely doesn't have quotas like this; rather alcohol is simply made to be quite expensive.

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.

Can you just brew your own?

Brew you can, distill you cannot.

Well, officially no. I remember outside Trondheim were they would only sell half cups of coffee (the implication being you would fill the rest with your home distilled liquor).

How is that a low quota? 24 cans of beer is a six pack every week. Plus four bottles of wine? And two bottles of liquor?

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.

Maybe that the quotas are very low

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.

Annually? Everything sounds high when you say it annually!

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)?

> 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 / 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.

> How would you feel if the government regulated how much sugar or salt you can eat,

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.

Two per day is not quite what the US government recommends:

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."

I believe for the Bathurst weekend (V8 Car race) in Australia, people are limited to a carton of beer or a bottle of liquor a DAY per person.... Not sure if that says more about the Svalbard limits or my countrymen.

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