The Russian government is preparing a law on ‘night prohibition’ – a ban on the sale of all beverages with more than five percent alcohol between 11 PM and 8 AM. Restaurants and cafes will be exempt from the ban.
The law is one of the measures in the campaign against alcoholism, which was announced with great expectations by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in August last year, who stated: ‘Let’s be honest, alcoholism is our national disaster.’ The strategy to combat alcoholism aims to reduce alcohol consumption in the country by 15 percent by 2012 and even by 55 percent by 2020. However, government critics say that the proposed measures are being implemented slowly and are not having the desired effect. For example, the regulation prohibiting the sale of alcohol to minors is hardly noticeable in practice. The slowness in adopting and implementing measures to combat alcoholism is attributed to constant delays that lobbyists manage to negotiate, but the government itself has not shown great speed either, as it loses a valuable source of revenue with the restriction on alcohol sales. Today, alcohol consumption in Russia averages 18 liters per capita. According to official data, at least two million people, out of a total population of 142 million, suffer from alcoholism, and each year about 100,000 people die from alcohol-related diseases. (Davorka Zmijarević)
