Tipsy love

Come the eve of friday, I usually am thinking what's on my things to buy for the weekend list. And usually, the top of my list is beer. I love my drinks, in fact nothing used to make my weekend more fun than drinking with my friends. When I came to Uppsala as a student, during a weekend I went to a supermarket to find out what beers they had. I checked out the entire supermarket but all they had was only a handful of names with low acohol content (2.8-3.5% v/V). It was utterly strange for me because in all my 4 years of living in Britain I had never come across a supermarket with no 'real' alcohol to sell. That's when I spoke to my Swedish friend inquiring about what was the deal regarding alcohol, and man, was I impressed.
Systembolaget stores are the only stores where you can buy alcohol from. Systembolaget is a Swedish innovation from mid 1800's that gives the government a monopoly over alcohol retailing.They are stores that only sell a different range of alcohol with a collection of imports from over 40 countries. A direct link to the factfile of systembolaget-
http://www.systembolaget.se/NR/rdonlyres/8C39020E-492A-47A1-B578-021AF5833CD6/0/foretagspres_03_eng.pdf
What they do is, regulate the flow of alcohol. Their standing conviction is that the more the people know, the better they will learn to handle alcohol.
During my student life in Scotland, I used to work night shifts in a local petrol station which sold alcohol till 10PM. My shifts started at 11PM and went on till 7AM. At that time, I have seen drunk mishaps at its epitome- a bunch of kids wearing suggestive attire,holding a bottle of Vodka beating a man. People of different age groups passed out in the vicinity of the station. I had to involve the cops. One of the questions I was then asked is if I sold alcohol to minors. Well, I had'nt. Someone else was. Ask the NHS, as to how many casualties related to alcohol poisoning they have to deal with on weekends. An interesting read from a 2007 article from the guardian-http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/oct/14/drugsandalcohol.health

Back at home in India too, getting your hands on alcohol regardless of your age is easy. The casualties involved afterwards is what  bothers me. More and more minors I know of in my town indulge with alcohol about 2-3 times a week.

It will be a never ending debate finding loopholes in existing systems regarding sale of alcohol all over the world. But what I realised was, when people get together and install a system like Systembolaget it shows their concern for general health of the public. It invokes a civic responsibility and asks for people to understand the use of alcohol.
My personal instances with systembolaget-
I was clean shaven once and rejected the sale of alcohol till I showed them my passport ( I am 26 years old). Worked out as a compliment for me.
The second time I went, I showed them my ID even before the cashier asked for it. For which, she gave me a gift- a pack of party quiz cards( I ain't kidding, it was pink!). Too bad she only had the cards in Swedish.
Me and a friend were together in the store once, when we got to the cashier, she says pointing to me, "You have to show me some ID as well". I had a 2 day stubble then, so it was'nt the beard.

I have loved living in Uppsala as a student so far and I think learning about systembolaget scores more points for Sweden in my book. And yeah, the stores are open only half day on Saturday and closed on Sundays- asking you to be a bit more organised and disciplined.