CHEERS!

Japan Uncorks Plan to Boost Economy—Get Young People Drinking Alcohol Again

It’s so crazy, it just might work?

Japan’s national tax agency has decided to address fiscal worries by encouraging young people to drink more alcohol. Officials are running a competition titled “Sake Viva!” that encourages people between the ages of 20 and 39 to come up with “business plans” that can help reinvigorate Japan’s drinking culture, which took a sobering decline during the pandemic. Although Japan never went into a full national lockdown, the sale of alcohol was banned in restaurants at one stage and, while people did hit the bottle at home, the total level of drinking dropped drastically. Critics of the competition—which seeks plans to “revitalize the liquor industry” with inventive ways for people to get drunk—complain that it disregards public health in pursuit of tax revenue.