Productive-commercial structure of alcohol and alcoholic beverages in Costa Rica

Abstract

The production, trade and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages is a topic little addressed in journal articles, leaving rather their treatment for complex research by specialized institutions.
The purpose of this issue is to address, at the descriptive level, the national productive structure of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The information we will present seeks to clear up some questions about the productive-commercial structure of alcohol and alcoholic beverages that may have people interested in the general problems of alcoholism. Articulated to the previous purpose, a second aspect that we will deal with is that of the consumption of absolute alcohol and alcoholic beverages that occur with it, in order to know the dimensions that its consumption acquires at the national level, and then establish some considerations about the Costa Rican population.
It should be noted that the data entered here are difficult to obtain. Partly because, although the information is possible to locate it, it is dispersed in several public institutions requiring important huma-nos and financial resources for its systematization. Also, because available data from government offices is usually delayed by several years in terms of available information. It is for the above two reasons that this article works on the basis of information from documents and other secondary sources from different public institutions; however, it should be noted that statistical data from the National Institute on Alcoholism and Pharmacodependence (IAFA) have been mainly tornadoed for the preparation of the final part.