The decision to introduce shorter alcohol sale hours in Lithuania has led to a drop in male deaths on Sundays and Mondays, according to a study by Daumantas Stumbrys, a senior researcher at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences.
Introduced in 2018, the existing alcohol sale restrictions have undoubtedly contributed to the decrease in mortality rates, he points out.
“The results of the study showed that there was an elevated mortality rate on Sundays and Mondays, and it has significantly decreased. It may have to do with other factors, too, that people die from cardiovascular diseases on Mondays, but it’s also undoubtedly related to alcohol,” Stumbrys told LRT RADIO on Sunday.
Carried out by Stumbrys and other researchers and published in July, the study aimed to find out how the male mortality rate in Lithuania has changed on weekdays since the restrictions came into place.
The study shows that until 2018, male mortality would spike on Sundays. Since then, it has fallen to the weekly average, and the same trend has also been observed on Mondays.
Alcohol control laws were considerably tightened by the then government led by the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, allowing supermarkets to sell alcohol from 10:00 to 20:00 Mondays through Saturdays and from 10:00 to 15:00 on Sundays.
Moreover, the legal drinking age was raised to 20 and all alcohol advertising was banned.
The measures were initiated by the ten minister of healthcare, Aurelijus Veryga, previously himself a professor at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences.
Proposals to loosen the restrictions were initiated in the parliament in 2021 but they failed to receive backing.
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