Alcohol Abuse in Russia

Joe Bloe Professor I. B Smart BS 131 December XX, 2008 intoxicant Abuse in Russia Family Issues Russians register in much inebriantic beverageic plight than any other nation in the world. (Halpin, 2007, p1) The quantify of London reports that Russians be currently going on an alcoholic bacchanal rase by Russian standards. According to the countrys forefront public health officer, Gennadi Onishenko, Russians are tipsiness nearly three time as much as they did sixteen twelvemonths ago. Onishenkos understand was promulgated by the Russian equivalent of the consumer protection agency and it inform that at least 2. million slew in Russia were alcoholics. The average Russian consumed 15 litres (26 pints) of pure alcohol per annum, up from 5. 4 litres in 1990, and this phenomena is damned for a rising rate of death rate among men. This compares to 8. 4 litres for people in the United States and 7. 6 litres in Japan. (Halpin, 2007 p 1) Violent crime and alcohol consumpti on hand adjoind throughout the Russian federation since the free fall of the Soviet meat. This has shown harmful consequences for families and communities, as surd alcohol drunkenness is close associated with violent behavior in Russia.The correlation amongst baleful drinking and violence is a complicated mixture of physiological, psychological, situational, social and cultural elements. Whenever measures to go out alcohol production and consumption have been introduced, trim back violence has occurred in Russia and elsewhere. (WHO, 2006) Violence is a familys worst enemy and whitethorn implicate physical and intimate assaults, mental or emotional ill-usage and neglect. It may also be categorized into interpersonal violence, child maltreatment or neglect, intimate partner violence within a relationship, sexual violence, abuse of the elderly or self-directed violence including suicide. WHO, 2006) in that location is ample narrate to support the relationship between heav y drinking and violence. In Russia, alcohol has been have-to doe with in three-quarters of homicide arrests. Families practically bear the brunt of the violence that emanates from heavy drinking. In the Central Black-Earth Region of Russia, a study showed that 77% of violent crimes against family members involved drinking with 35% of these drinkers bingeing every day. Among male perpetrators of spousal homicide, 6075% of offenders had been drinking before the incident. (WHO, 2006)Alcohol abuse affects physical and cognitive functioning resulting in reduced self-control and the ability to process incoming information. This makes drinkers more talented to resort to violence to resolve conflicts. (Rand Corp. , 2002) Heavy drinking faecal matter scotch parents responsibilities toward themselves and their children. Drinking also reduces the amount of time and money spent on their children, often neglecting the childrens basic necessitys. Alcohol abuse by every the parent or the chi ld increases the childs vulnerability to sexual abuse.Sometimes children are made to drink alcohol to facilitate sexual acts or involve them in child pornography. (WHO, 2006) Alcohol abuse during pregnancy can result in children world born with fetal alcohol syndrome as well as health issues for the mother. Excessive drinking in a relationship can create enigmas with finances, childcare, infidelity or other stressors tip to potentially violent situations. (WHO, 2006) Health Issues Russians are suffering from a problem with demographic retention and a declining population base.Alcoholism is a leading casing in rising Russian mortality rates, particularly among males. Alcohol contri just nowes to untimely deaths involving accidents, injuries and violence particularly among males. Male mortality rates fell sharply during Gorbachevs anti-alcohol campaign of 1984 to 1987. This effort reduced state alcohol production, brocaded prices for liquor, mandated alcoholic treatments where n eeded and cracked down on homemade liquor. The curriculum was highly unpopular and abandoned, after which both consumption of alcohol and mortality rates for males increased dramatically once again. Rand Corp. , 2002) Russias population has dropped from cxlv million in 2002 to 140,702,000 in July of 2008. The birth rate is slightly higher(prenominal) at 11. 3 births per 1,000 up from 9. 1 per 1,00 in 2002. Male look expectancy is only 59 years and for females it is 73 years. (Fitzgerald, 2003, CIA 2008) Statistics for children are non encouraging. In 2003, the number of healthy children in Russia dropped from 45. 5 percent to 33. 9 percent over ten years, and the number of disabled children doubled, according to the epidemiology scratch of the Health Ministry.According to information gathered form the 2002 census, one third of Russian children are born out of wedlock. (Fitzgerald, 2003) The Russian Ministry of Health did not lodge alcoholic parents for substandard health envir onments or the usual culprits of drug abuse, or smoking and eating junk food but blamed an increase in the school workload and less time for outdoor exercise. The Ministry claimed that an astounding 75% of children were said to have hypertension and related problems in the 2003 abbreviation of Russian health. (Fitzgerald, 2003)Beer is regarded in many areas as if it were soda pop. Children as unripe as 13 routinely drink beer in public in some areas and the national legal drinking age is currently 18 years. Vodka has usanceally been available nearly everywhere to nearly everybody in Russia and children have no problem finding it. As in America and elsewhere, heavy alcohol consumption in Russia impedes a familys well being in a host of problematic ways. And Russians drink more alcohol per capita than any other national population in the world. (Halpin, 2007)Gorbachevs look for to limit alcohol abuse In 1985 President Gorbachev, who was then president of the USSR, began a campai gn to limit alcohol abuse by ski lift the legal drinking age to 21 years and imposing bully legal sanctions on home production of alcohol. (Today, the drinking age is 18 years. ) During the period of 1984 through 1987 when the campaign was running, state sales of alcohol decreased by 61%. Statistically speaking, the effort was successful in that tot violent deaths dropped 33% and alcohol-related violent deaths dropped by 51%.The program was not popular with the public, however, and was abandoned in 1987. By 1992, market reforms for alcohol were instituted that liberalized affair and dropped prices and the rates of violent deaths increased substantially. (WHO, 2006) These rising figures are subject to description because this was the era of perestroika in Russia and increases in violent deaths cannot be solely attributed to increases in alcohol availability and consumption. The temporal correlations between the crackdown on alcohol and the drops in violence indicate that they a re interconnected.Perestroika and glasnost were introduced to Russian society in receipt to President Gorbachevs initiatives toward political reform and moral recovery. A substructure of his plan was a reduction in drinking which he adage not only as a health problem but a cause of economic inefficiency. (McKee, 1999) He adopted a savage approach to limiting alcohol production, distribution and use. All state agencies were tell to develop departmental strategies to cut down alcohol consumption. Alcohol was censor at official functions and party officials who drank heavily were dismissed from their jobs.Liquor outlets were dramatically reduced and the media salmagundid its attitude to one of intolerance for alcohol and organizations like the All-Union Voluntary caller for the Struggle for Sobriety sprang up. This association claimed 12 million members one year after organizing. (McKee, 1999) Within a few years, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, the campaign faltered and was eventually replaced by a rapid rise in consumption, driven by widespread illicit production of homemade alcohol on a massive, national scale. Economic IssuesRussias stock markets have befuddled about(predicate) 70 percent of their value since peaks in May, and workers have been leaden hit by lay-offs and wage arrears. The tepid global economy has odd Russians hurting and they, like most of the world, have had to cut back on expenses. The result is less state-sanctioned vodka being sold and an increase in homemade spirits. Research by the National Alcohol Association showed that deaths from alcohol toxic condition increased to 1,458 in September, presumably the result of Russians drinking dangerous substitutes for vodka as a brazen-faceder way to get drunk. (Shuster, 2008)During Gorbachevs anti-alcohol campaign, the production of samogon (homemade spirits) had exit a large-scale industry that provided cheap alcohol to Russians time depriving the state of revenue enhancement revenue. When restrictions were eased in 1988, alcohol consumption quickly exceeded the pre-1985 level. A Russian study done in 1995 revealed that regular drunkenness affected between 25 and 65 percent of blue-collar workers and 21 percent of professional workers, particularly in rural areas. (Coutsoukis, 2005) Unemployed workers are particularly susceptible to alcohol abuse problems.Being available in most places, day or night and being historically cheap people without occupations tend to drink more often and heavier. When vodka is unavailable or too expensive, they will often resort to dangerous substitutes. In 1994, the number of people who died of alcohol drunkenness rose to about 53,000, a major increase from 36,000 in 1991. These are typically the result of drinking homemade alcohol substitutes. Bootlegging had become a widespread criminal activity by the mid 1990s. (Coutsoukis, 2005) reasoned vodka is big business in Russia.The word vodka means little weewee in Russian , a term of endearment. (Tartakovsky, 2006) The brand Stolichnaya sells $2 billion a year worldwide and was privatized in 1992. Soyuzplodimport, or SPI, has the exclusive rights to export Stolichnaya, which vodka lovers in the U. S. fondly refer to as Stoli. Some 50% of the companys export dollar volume comes from the United States, thanks mostly to its strategic alliance with Allied-Domecq for U. S. distribution rights. (Shuster, 2008) Alcohol and workers The Russian workplace has always been a place where vodka contributed to the socializing rituals.Before the Bolshevik Revolution the Russian tradition of privalnaia, a welcoming ceremony for in the raw workers that include snacks and vodka. It was a socializing event where the pertly workers would become present with their fellow workers. The new workers were expected to provide the snacks and vodka for the veterans in exchange for learn in the new job. (Andreasen, 2006) The Revolution changed the way workers were employ. Prior to this era, workers were usually hired on the recommendation of an acquaintance and the ceremony of privalnaia was part of the payback for get the job.With the implementation of the communist trade unions, the hiring became an impersonal process and there was no payback necessary and it eliminated the workers obligation to train new employees. These changes brought about the practical end to privalnaia, although some workers and organizations still clung to the old tradition where they could get away with it. (Andreasen, 2006) Russian worker culture has always included vodka. The working class sees vodka as an essential element for surviving their unrelenting winters and poor economy.It is an escape that causes apathy among the work force and contributes to poor health and accidents that make Russias work force less productive and more costly. Productivity in Russia has always been known to suffer because of heavy drinking. That persuasion is one of the motivators behind G orbachevs plan to reduce drinking in the 1980s. It is difficult to gauge the true impact of worker drinking and productiveness because the Russian economy is still in a state of mingle as it transfers from a state-controlled, centralized economy to free-markets. It is inappropriate to make comparisons about worker utput and drinking since the two economies measure productivity in countless different ways. (Kryzanek, 2004) Many Soviet patriots and party leaders recognized the need to curb alcohol to increase worker productivity.Pokhlebkin was one of these patriotic historians who print his extensive research in a book called A explanation of Vodka he included a chapter depicting what he determined to be Russias descent into rampant alcoholism. Drunkenness, he asserted, is incompatible with socialist principles in that it undermines worker morale and curtails industrial productivity. Tartakovsky, 2006) Russian workers have become smug after seventy years of communism. Entire gener ations have grown up shirking work because private initiatives were always discouraged and sometimes even dangerous. Wage inversion led to high pay for lowliest work while job dissatisfaction created moonlighting and demoralized workers moved from job to job. Alcohol has always exacerbated this complacency and lack of motivation. (Kryzanek, 2004) Heavy drinking has a deeply rooted business relationship in Russian culture and life.The problem seems so ingrained in their society that it would be impossible to completely eliminate drinking from the society. This heavy drinking behavior is exhibited in other northern cultures like the displace or Polish societies without such devastating consequences. In Russia, however, there is historical evidence to suggest that the countrys governments from the Czars to the Soviets have helped to create this culture. (McKee, 1999) There are also several sub-cultures of the drinking population in Russia because of geographic, sexual activity and socio-economic variations, making it difficult to generalize the problem.There are even some people among these groups who actually abstain or drink in moderation. The state itself has contributed to the drinking problem throughout the countrys history by producing and distributing cheap vodka in the name of tradition and profit. It should be feasible for the government to take some kind of proactive measures to stop its population from killing themselves with even-more toxic substitutes for a toxic product. Apparently, it will take many generations of sober Russians to change the high-profile role alcohol plays in so many national traditions.The Russian people have gone through many changes throughout the ages. Hopefully, their resiliency will help them change their love of vodka and allow them to become socially conscious drinkers. Thats a tradition easily passed on.