Alcohol abuse in Lithuania: how creativity bypasses the law

© DELFI (T. Vinickas)

Situated on the east coast of the Baltic Sea, between Poland and Latvia there is a sometimes forgotten country, called Lithuania. Due to intensive rains it would be wise to rename it to “Rainland”, its residents like to joke time by time. Some people might find difficult to understand such sense of humor when intensive “rains” of alcohol certainly threaten this land to be flooded deadly.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), which is quoted by “International Business Times”, in 2014 Lithuania was 3rd World’s biggest consumer of alcohol per capita. For a country of less than 3 million citizens it is a God’s scourge, especially when an intensive emigration of youth is knocking to the same door.

Facing the fact that country year by year gets older and drunker, its government is eager to tackle this issue and reshape the whole landscape of alcohol consumption. However, more and more problems pop out when trying to find a right path out of drunkenness.

Failure is an option

The level of awareness of getting the drunkest nation on this planet during past 10 years has significantly increased in Lithuania. Previous government back in 2007 introduced revolutionary legislations which forbade any sort of alcohol commercials on TV and radio during the day. Suggestions to ban any sort of commercial of alcohol were considered as well. However, after recent monitoring of alcohol consumption, the whole landscape has not been affected at all.

Latest elections of a Parliament in regard to this topic were promising a lot. The dominant party which now is responsible of forming a new Government decided to put a direct pressure on sellers and ban any sort of advertising of alcohol discounts at shops. It seems like Lithuania is finally capable of tackling the issue. Unfortunately it only seems so.

On the way to app

All the rivalry between alcohol market and government helped to shape a new perception of this topic. Outdated legislations are capable of making a direct impact on sellers through influencing certain media channels, but its convergence and spread allows to implement forbidden commercials in new ways. One of them – mobile apps in order to cover all the banned spheres.

Since it gets more and more difficult to inform people about alcohol discounts, creativity and new ideas start to take the top. The best instance is an upcoming mobile app which is going to provide people with all the discounts of alcohol at shops.

A new process of hunting cheaper alcohol is going to look like this: a customer will have to download the app to his smartphone which will be able to recognize various of barcodes (only iOS and Android users will be able to use this service). If a certain type of alcohol drink has a discount, customer will receive all the information about the price with and without discount.

A screen shot of website www.gerimai.lt

Unfortunately, currently the law is not able to follow the whole stream of creativity in order to bypass it. “The app is not going to provide any discounts, advertise any sort of alcohol drinks, but will serve as a tool to find cheaper goods than usual”, – claims its producer. Paradoxically it was named “gėrimai.lt” (eng. drinks.lt), what leaves no interpretations whatsoewer.

According to producers, customers who are going to pay for the service can expect to have even broader variety of its functions. If it goes like this, a well developed startup in near future might shake the whole alcohol market, with significant investments to it as well.

Alternative TV against alternative apps

At the mean time when the law struggles to curb alcohol market due to its creativity, alternative TV appears to cover this topic. The one and only example of it – “Laisvės TV” (eng. Freedom TV).

A project which was established by ambitious opinion leader Andrius Tapinas, is an alternative way to look at current issues that classical media and legislation fails to do. Voluntarily funded by people and produced only in Lithuanian language, currently “Laisvės TV” belongs to top 15 of “Patreon” channels.

"Laisvės TV" (Facebook)

However, the whole project is not about the fame. Being the only online TV channel, “Laisvės TV” has already earned a huge respect and attention of youth, what is being used toward better future of Lithuania (soberness counts as well).

As a columnist to the biggest online news portal “DELFI”, A. Tapinas constantly emphasizes the necessity to reduce alcohol consumption in Lithuania. “Here we unite the power of well known journalists, public figures, and popular internet personas with thousands of followers. There will be a lot of displeased people, but even more who will be happy”, – on “Patreon” channel about one of his TV show says A. Tapinas,  definitely keeping in mind alcohol as well.