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Medvedev urges more steps to curb alcohol threat

© Anton Denisov / Go to the mediabankMedvedev urges more steps to curb alcohol threat
Medvedev urges more steps to curb alcohol threat - Sputnik International
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President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday measures so far taken to curb alcohol abuse and other addictions in Russia had been insufficient.

SOCHI, August 12 (RIA Novosti) - President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday measures so far taken to curb alcohol abuse and other addictions in Russia had been insufficient.

"I believe no changes have taken place really. Nothing has helped," Medvedev said, pointing to stricter production and sales requirements, limits on alcohol advertising and more severe penalties for drink driving introduced in recent years.

Medvedev reiterated that the problem was tantamount to a national security threat.

The Russian Public Chamber said in a report in June that around 500,000 Russians die from alcohol-related deaths annually.

For every man, woman and child in Russia, 17 liters of spirits are consumed a year, with some 2 billion liters of alcohol being drunk in Russia annually. Alcohol is also involved in some 80% of murders and 40% of suicides in Russia, the report said.

Medvedev cited a slightly different figure of about 18 liters per person. He said the figure was more than twice as high the one set by the World Health Organization as dangerous for a nation's health.

The president said long-term, consistent measures were needed to fight drug abuse, urging more restrictions, health promotion and better living standards for people.

Speaking at a meeting with the president at his Black Sea residence on Wednesday, the health and social development minister highlighted growing alcohol abuse among teenagers and females.

"Some 33% of young men and 20% of females drink alcohol, including beer, every day or in a day, while regular beer drinkers account for 76% of the population," Tatyana Golikova said, also highlighting the danger of alcopops or low-alcohol beverages which are aimed at young people. She said sport centers were due to open across the country in September as part of a campaign to divert people from drinking.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of sweeping reforms in the late 1980s, also raised concern in June: "We are destroying ourselves, and then we will look for those who destroyed our country, for those who made us drink. The situation is such that we must take control."

Gorbachev briefly introduced prohibition in the Soviet Union in 1985 in an attempt to put a halt to the rampant alcoholism that was already taking its toll on the nation's economy and health system, which resulted in an increase in people drinking home-made alcohol and cleaning fluids.

 

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