Alcohol Consumption and its Impact on Violent Behavior

Cetina (2016) examines crime in post-revolutionary Mexico City between 1920 and 1940 and he emphasizes that one of the most common crimes between 1920 and 1940 was the “homicidio en riña“, a homicide induced by quarrel, which typically occurred between two males in the surroundings of canteens, pulquerías or bars (Cetina 2016, p. 156). In these spaces of “masculine encounters”, quarrels and disputes due to rivalries, offenses against the honor and these disputes often escalated into open violence. The persons included in the quarrels were often acquaintances that lived in the same neighborhood or visited the same pulquería. Just as in a Wild West movie, people challenged each other to duels, that often ended with death (Cetina 2016). In most of these events, the delinquents and their victims were under the influence of alcohol, and afterwards claimed that they could not remember anything, due to their drunkenness (p. 161).

Already in the statistical yearbook of Mexico City of the year 1899 (found in the National Archive of Mexico), reports of drunken violence can be found. The (unknown) author describes that the reason for most of the violent crimes can be found in the consumption of alcoholic beverages. A cheap price combined with a growing number of bars and canteens (expendios de

alcohol) is responsible for the offense against the person, in the opinion of the author. Over five pages, he describes how alcohol stimulates the temperament of the drinkers, awakens the instincts and reveals the individual wishes and passions. These illustrations show that alcohol consumption might have been a serious problem in 20th century Mexico, which in turn increased the incidence of homicides. The effect of alcohol consumption on violence has already been shown in other contexts. Mehlum et al. (2006) show that in 19th century Bavaria, higher rye prices led to higher beer prices, which in turn resulted in a drop in alcohol consumption and consequently reduced violent crime. Markowitz (2005) found that higher beer taxes led to lower violent crime in the 1990s in the US. In a meta-analytic review covering nine countries, Kuhns et al. (2014) conclude that on average 48% of the homicide offenders were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offense.

The most prevalent alcoholic beverage in Mexico is Pulque, a traditional liquor made from fermented sap of Agave. Pulque always had an important place in the Mexican society. Already during colonial times, the “excessive consumption of pulque caused serious problems in public health and order” (Garine 2001, p. 171). Pulque is even considered as the “center of whole ways of life”, at least in the regions in which it is produced. Pulque is almost exclusively drunk in special bars known as pulquerías (see Figure B.17) (Garine 2001), that were the center of the (male) social life in 20th century Mexico (Cetina 2016). Still after the colonial period, the excessive consumption of pulque as well as the extraordinarily high number of Pulquerías in the cities was considered public nuisance. Cetina (2016) describes that the pulquerías were known for scandals, fights, quarrels and violent behavior. Rancaño (2000) reports that at the beginning of the 20th century, newspapers were filled with news about fights, injuries and assassinations that happened in the surroundings of pulquerías and many were complaining about the general turmoil caused by the presence of pulquerías. In Mexico City 1,311 pulquerías existed, while the

city had only 400,000 inhabitants, which corresponds to one pulque bar for every 305 persons. For comparison, there was only one bakery for every 11,764 inhabitants. The Newspaper “El Imparcial” then concluded that Mexicans consumed more pulque than meat. Since the presence of so many pulquerías led to social disorder and turmoil, the municipality of Mexico City decided to impose clear regulations. While until 1906 there was one pulquería every 60 meters, afterwards there had to be a minimum distance of 100 meters between two pulquerías in any direction (Rancaño 2000). Also in other cities, following incidents of social disorder, pulquerías were closed or the number of pulquerías admitted was reduced. These facts illustrate how severe the impact of the consumption of pulque was in the Mexican society. Whenever pulquerías are mentioned in the literature, quarrels, disputes, violence, duels and assassinations are mentioned as well. This leads to the hypothesis, that the consumption of pulque might have significantly augmented the number of homicides in Mexico.

Because of these circumstances revolving around the pulquerías, the number of pulquerías was precisely documented in every state all throughout the 20th century. The statistical yearbooks that are the basis of the data set used in this study also contained data on the number of pulquerías per state. Fortunately, the variation in this variable is substantial. In some cases, the number is reduced by 10 pulquerías from one year to next, probably caused by an incident of social disorder and the subsequent closing of the bars. Additionally, the number of cervecerías, the bars selling beer, is also reported, even though beer has been less influential in the Mexican society.

To obtain an indicator that gauges the intensity of pulque consumption in every state-year observations, the number of pulquerías is divided by the total population of the state. The underlying assumption is that the size of pulquerías stays roughly the same and that each pulquería can serve roughly the same number of people. This assumption is reasonable, since pulquerías are usually small to medium sized bars.

Figure B.18 depicts the geographical patterns of the pulquerías per capita indicator. While the northern states as well as the southern periphery are characterized by a low density of pulquerías, they were omnipresent in the center of Mexico. The highest average density of pulquerías was present in Tlaxcala, followed by Puebla, Mexico, Querétaro, Hidalgo and Mexico City.