The evidence from studies around the world suggests that neither limiting the number of outlets nor the days/hours of sale would be effective in reducing alcohol problems. To the contrary, it might increase problems or create new ones. For example, Australian laws closing bars at six o'clock got the working men out of the establishments and possibly home to their families in time for dinner. However, they also produced the undesirable custom known as the six o'clock swill, which involves consuming as much alcohol as possible between the end of work and the six o'clock closing time.

Similarly, restricting the availability of alcohol can increase serious harm to some drinkers. For example, when restrictions were placed on the hours during which alcohol beverages could be sold in some urban areas, the consumption of such hazardous, often lethal, substances as rubbing alcohol and sterno fuel increased. Following this tragic discovery, restrictions were lifted and hours were extended in order to decrease consumption of toxic forms of alcohol.

Requiring warning messages with all advertisements, expanding the warning labels on all alcohol beverage containers, and expanding the display of warning signs in establishments that sell or serve alcohol beverages: Studies of alcohol beverage container warnings have demonstrated that they have virtually no impact on drinking behavior, and absolutely none on drinking problems. This is consistent with a review of 400 studies on the effectiveness of product warnings, which concluded that they have no impact on behavior.

Studies reporting awareness of warnings are highly suspect. For example, thirty-one percent of a large sample of women reported seeing the warning label in June of 1989, which was five months before it appeared on beverage containers. And those who are most at risk of alcohol abuse appear to be the ones who are most strongly resistant to warnings.

Warning labels on advertising may actually be counterproductive, doing more harm than good. Some researchers have found that drinkers appear to consume more after viewing warning labels in a form of defiance or unconscious effort to assert their freedom and autonomy by doing what they are, in essence, told not to do. The "forbidden fruit" phenomenon has been extensively documented with regard to alcohol and other products.

Limiting the sale of alcohol beverages to people of specific ages: Legislation that is intended to prohibit drinking customs that are embedded in a group risks failure, as did national prohibition in countries around the world, such as Iceland, Russia, Finland, and the United States.

Not surprisingly, age-specific prohibition appears to be ineffective in reducing either the proportion of drinkers or their drinking problems. "Statistics show that underaged persons increased their use of alcohol steadily from the 1930s to the 1960s, when legislation to curtail sales was most active." Then, following the reduction of the drinking age in the 1970s, the proportion of collegians who drank trended downward. In short, legislation has little impact on the drinking behaviors of young people.

Unfortunately, minimum age legislation sometimes backfires. For example, as one student observed, it "might be easier to hide a little pot in my room than a six pack of beer." Perhaps more important, higher minimum age legislation tends to force young people to drink "underground," in unsupervised locations in which they learn undesirable alcohol attitudes and behaviors. And it may lead them to drink or to drink more: the forbidden fruit. This is important because problem drinkers appear to begin their drinking at a later age than others, to have their first drinking experience outside the home, to become intoxicated the first time they drink, and to drink as an act of rebellion (open or secret) against authority.

Increased server liability for subsequent problems associated with consumption: Does making a public or private server of alcohol financially responsible for damage caused by serving alcohol to an intoxicated person lead to more responsible serving practices?

This question has been virtually ignored by investigators. However, one study examined the effects of two server liability cases in Texas during the 1980s. Before the lawsuits, Texans had very little liability for the consequences of their alcohol serving practices. The study found that after these two highly publicized and very controversial cases, single-vehicle nighttime crashes in Texas declined 6.5% in 1983 and 5.3% in 1994. The researchers may be correct in assuming that these declines were due to the effects of the dramatic and sudden change in the law rather than any other factors. Additional research is needed to determine if increasing server liability is effective in reducing alcohol abuse, especially in the long term.