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Introduction: Alcohol consumption is a global and European health problem; and responsible for 7% of morbidities and 12% of premature deaths in EU. Moreover, alcohol monopoly and taxes are policies used in Nordics and Canada to control alcohol consumption and related harms. They are reviewed along with traveller’s allowance that have major effects as well.

Aim: Review the literature of the effectiveness of alcohol monopoly, taxation and travellers’ allowance on alcohol consumption, mortality, morbidity and hospitalization. Methods: PubMed database was used to find studies on Nordics and Canada using the keywords. 9 studies were chosen according to the eligibility criteria.

Results: From the analysis of the reviewed studies an overall view emerged: alcohol monopoly along with other related policies and controls are effective in decreasing alcohol and beer consumption. On the other hand, decreasing taxes, prices and increasing travellers’ allowance or cross-border purchasing lead to controversial effects and do not work effectively with monopolies. Evidence from several countries suggests a positive relationship between physical availability and total alcohol consumption. Restricting beer availability, Saturday and Sunday closing (except Iceland) had decreased total alcohol consumption, hospitalization and alcohol-driving accident among subgroups. Evidence on the relationship between alcohol taxation and alcohol consumption is more mixed. Decreasing Danish taxes lead to decrease 2% of consumption as well as in Finland in the 1990s. Taxes increased morbidities by 13.8% & 8.2% in women and men, respectively and 4% of alcohol-related mortality in Sweden & Finland. In the 2000s, tax raises were effective to cut consumption among young-drinkers. The effect of higher taxes in Norway was cancelled out by increasing wages. Furthermore, increasing taxes are effective against alcohol-related liver diseases. Travelers’ allowance purchasing on borders has affected specific subgroups. Despite the decrease in total consumption in Finland, it had an increase among heavy and young drinkers with 30% of liver diseases.

Conclusion: Alcohol monopolization is effective on beer and subgroups, while, taxes on excessive alcohol consumption, liver diseases, and associated with health care cost savings. Travelers allowance is highly affecting alcohol consumption in both settings. The review proposes the importance of further researches and interventions on specific subgroups, research on the new policy-2018- in Finland and the importance of monopolizing the Danish alcohol retailers.