While, historically, alcohol production and sale were local matters, commercialised and industrialised alcohol has supervened, globalised initially through European empires, transforming alcohol’s place in everyday life. But alcohol was not included in the current international drug control system, initiated in 1912. In the current “UN system” of 35 intergovernmental agencies, alcohol has been a recurrent concern in the work only of the World Health Organization (WHO). Examples are given of the sporadic involvement in alcohol issues of other agencies, and the history of WHO’s involvement between 1950 and early 2020 is briefly described. At WHO, the place of alcohol programming in its structure and which other topics it is linked with have been recurrent issues. Civil society support for alcohol initiatives has been comparatively weak, and alcohol industry counter-pressure has been strong. Alcohol issues have thus received less attention at the intergovernmental level than the harm would justify. Constraining factors have included not only lobbying by industry interests, but also the multi-sectoral nature of alcohol problems and the international cultural position of alcohol as a luxury good served at gatherings of political and media elites.

中文翻译：

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尽量减少酒精问题的全球政府间倡议：一些善意，但行动甚少

虽然从历史上看，酒的生产和销售都是地方事务，但商业化和工业化的酒已经出现，最初通过欧洲帝国全球化，改变了酒在日常生活中的地位。但酒精并未包括在 1912 年启动的现行国际药物管制系统中。在目前由 35 个政府间机构组成的“联合国系统”中，酒精一直是世界卫生组织 (WHO) 工作中经常关注的问题。给出了其他机构零星参与酒精问题的例子，并简要描述了世卫组织从 1950 年到 2020 年初参与的历史。在世卫组织，酒精规划在其结构中的位置以及与之相关的其他主题一直是反复出现的问题。民间社会对酒精倡议的支持相对较弱，而酒类行业的反压力一直很强。因此，酒精问题在政府间层面受到的关注比其危害所证明的要少。制约因素不仅包括行业利益的游说，还包括酒精问题的多部门性质以及酒精作为奢侈品在政治和媒体精英聚会中的国际文化地位。