The New York Times, 21 January 1997, features a front-page article on
Yeltsin doubling taxes on vodka to the equivalent of $7 per liter,
restoring the state monopoly on the manufacture and sale of vodka,
and declaring war on the illegal producers and smugglers who account
for 70% of the current market.    In 1995 the Health Ministry
estimated that 4.1 gallons of spirts were consumed by each Russian
citizen, regardless of age or health.  The Center for Alcohol Policy,
a Russian advocacy group, estimated that half of adult men and nearly
a third of women suffer some physical consequences of long-term
drinking and estimated that half of all deaths in Russia can be
attributed at least partly to alcohol.  Today much of the pure
alcohol in Russia was smuggled from Belarus and Ukraine.
 
David M. Fahey
History Department
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056-1618, USA
tel. 513-529-5134
FAX 513-529-3224
e-mail: <[log in to unmask]>