Alcohol in Russia

Alcoholism has been a problem throughout the country's history because drinking is a pervasive, socially acceptable behaviour in Russian society. Alcohol has also been a significant source of government revenue for centuries.{{cite journal |doi=10.1093/alcalc/34.6.824 |last1=McKee |first1=Martin |year=1999 |title=Alcohol in Russia |journal=Alcohol and Alcoholism |publisher=Oxford Journals |volume=34 |issue=6 |pages=824–829 |pmid=10659717|doi-access= }}

According to Russian legend, one of the main reasons that the 10th-century Kyivan prince Vladimir the Great rejected Islam is because of Islam's prohibition of drinking alcohol.Primary Chronicle, year 6494 (986) He is purportedly quoted stating:

{{quote|Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without its pleasure.{{cite journal | last=Herlihy | first=Patricia | title=Stephen White, Russia goes dry: Alcohol, state and society. Cambridge University Press, 1996. xi, 250 pp. |type=book review | journal=The Social History of Alcohol Review | volume=34–35 | date=1997 | issn=0887-2783 | doi=10.1086/SHAREVv34-35n1p31 | pages=31–34}}}}

In the 1540s, Ivan the Terrible began setting up kabaks ({{langx|ru|кабак}}) or taverns in his major cities to help fill his coffers,{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1951620,00.html |title=A Brief History of Russians and Vodka |first=Claire |last=Suddath |magazine=Time |date=January 5, 2010 |access-date=May 10, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100525170240/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0%2C8599%2C1951620%2C00.html |archive-date=25 May 2010 |url-status=dead }} and a third of Russian men were in debt to the kabaks by 1648. By 1859, vodka, the national drink, was the source of more than 40% of the government's revenue.{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2498098 |jstor=2498098 |last1=Christian |first1=David |title=Vodka and Corruption in Russia on the Eve of Emancipation |journal=Slavic Review |year=1987 |volume=46 |issue=3/4 |pages=471–488 |s2cid=163858376 }}{{cite web |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/how-alcohol-conquered-russia/279965/ |title=How Alcohol Conquered Russia |website=The Atlantic |first=Stan |last=Fedun |date=25 September 2013 }}

{{see also|Prohibition in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union}}

In 1909, the average alcohol consumption was said to be 11 bottles per capita per year. An estimated 4% of the population of St. Petersburg were alcoholics in 1913.{{cite news|last1=Khwaja|first1=Barbara|title=Health Reform in Revolutionary Russia|url=https://www.sochealth.co.uk/2017/05/26/health-reform-revolutionary-russia/|access-date=26 May 2017|publisher=Socialist Health Association|date=26 May 2017}}

At the beginning of World War I, prohibition was introduced in the Russian Empire, limiting the sale of hard liquor to restaurants.

After the Bolshevik Party came to power, they made repeated attempts to reduce consumption in the Soviet Union. However, by 1925, vodka had reappeared in state-run stores. Joseph Stalin reestablished a state monopoly to generate revenue. Alcohol-related taxes constituted one-third of government revenues by the 1970s.

Prophylactoriums, medical treatment centres, were established in 1925 to treat alcoholics and prostitutes. By 1929, there were five in Moscow. Chronic alcoholics evading treatment were detained for up to two years.{{cite news|last1=Jargin|first1=Sergei|title=Learning from the Russians|url=http://www.bmj.com/content/333/7561/267.1/rr/700222|access-date=29 May 2017|publisher=British Medical Journal|date=27 July 2006}}

From the 1930s and 1940s until the mid-1980s, the primary treatment for alcoholism in Russia was conditioned response therapy. This treatment has since fallen out of favour.

In the early 1980s, an estimated "two-thirds of murders and violent crimes were committed by intoxicated persons; and drunk drivers were responsible for 14,000 traffic deaths and 60,000 serious traffic injuries". Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev,{{cite journal |last1=Dorman |first1=Nancy D. |last2=Towle |first2=Leland H. |year=1991 |title=Initiatives to curb alcohol abuse and alcoholism in the former Soviet Union |journal=Alcohol Health & Research World |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0847/is_n4_v15/ai_12754655/?tag=content;col1}} Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko all tried to stem alcoholism.

In 1985, it was estimated that alcoholism resulted in $8 billion in lost production.{{cite news |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,960191,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080510190655/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,960191,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 10, 2008 |title=Soviet Union Fighting the Battle of the Bottle |author1=John Moody |author2=James O. Jackson |author3=Nancy Traver |publisher=Time magazine |date=October 21, 1985 |access-date=May 12, 2010}} Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to impose a partial prohibition campaign, which involved a massive anti-alcohol campaign, severe penalties against public drunkenness and alcohol consumption, and restrictions on sales of liquor. The campaign was temporarily successful in reducing per capita alcohol consumption and improving quality-of-life measures such as life expectancies and crime rates but was deeply unpopular among the population, and it ultimately failed.

In 1995, about three-quarters of those arrested for homicide were under the influence of alcohol, and 29% of respondents reported that children beaten within families were the victims of drunks and alcoholics.{{cite web | url=http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/98804/E88757.pdf | title=Interpersonal Violence and Alcohol in the Russian Federation | publisher=Violence and Injury Prevention Programme - WHO Regional Office for Europe | date=2006 | access-date=February 26, 2016}} A 1997 report published in the Journal of Family Violence found that among male perpetrators of spousal homicide, 60–75% of offenders had been drinking before the incident.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Russia was one of the top alcohol-drinking countries in the world. A study by Russian, British, and French researchers published in The Lancet scrutinized deaths between 1990 and 2001 of residents of three Siberian industrial towns with typical mortality rates and determined that 52% of deaths of people between the ages of 15 and 54 were the result of complications of alcohol use disorder.{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61034-5 |last1=Zaridze |first1=David |year=2009 |title=Alcohol and cause-specific mortality in Russia: a retrospective case—control study of 48 557 adult deaths |journal=The Lancet |volume=373 |issue=9682 |pages=2201–2214 |url= |last2=Brennan |first2=Paul |last3=Boreham |first3=Jillian |last4=Boroda |first4=Alex |last5=Karpov |first5=Rostislav |last6=Lazarev |first6=Alexander |last7=Konobeevskaya |first7=Irina |last8=Igitov |first8=Vladimir |last9=Terechova |first9=Tatiana|display-authors=8 |pmid=19560602 |pmc=2715218}} Lead researcher Professor David Zaridze estimated that the increase in alcohol consumption since 1987 has caused an additional three million deaths nationwide. Men were particularly hit hard: according to a U.N. National Human Development Report, Russian males born in 2006 had a life expectancy of just over 60 years, or 17 years fewer than Western Europeans, while Russian females could expect to live 13 years longer than their male counterparts.{{cite news |url=http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31544292 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306060424/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/31544292/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 6, 2016 |title=Alcohol blamed for half of '90s Russian deaths |agency=Associated Press |date=June 25, 2009 |access-date=May 10, 2010}}

After 2003, alcohol use in Russia began to drop as public opinion and government policy changed. For example, in 2007, Gennadi Onishenko, the country's chief public health official, voiced his concern over the nearly threefold rise in alcohol consumption over the past 16 years.{{cite news |title=Health alert as Russia's alcohol consumption triples |author =Tony Halpin |newspaper=The Times |date=April 13, 2007 |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1647475.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706184447/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1647475.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 6, 2008}} Between 2003 and 2018, the number of deaths from all causes dropped by about 39% for men and 36% for women. Life expectancy also improved, reaching nearly 68 years for men and 78 years for women in 2018.

In 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev nearly doubled the minimum price of a bottle of vodka to combat the problem.{{cite news |url=http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100117/russia-vodka-alcoholism |title=Opinion: Why a $3 bottle of vodka won't cut it |first=Kate |last=Transchel |work=Global Post |date=January 18, 2010 |access-date=May 10, 2010}}

In 2012, a national ban on sales of all types of alcoholic beverages from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. was introduced to complement regional bans.{{cite journal | pmid=25964243 | year=2015 | last1=Khaltourina | first1=D. | last2=Korotayev | first2=A. | title=Effects of Specific Alcohol Control Policy Measures on Alcohol-Related Mortality in Russia from 1998 to 2013 | journal=Alcohol and Alcoholism |location=Oxford, Oxfordshire | volume=50 | issue=5 | pages=588–601 | doi=10.1093/alcalc/agv042 | doi-access=free }}

The Russian government has proposed reducing the state minimum vodka price in reaction to the 2014–15 Russian financial crisis.{{cite web | url=https://money.cnn.com/2014/12/31/news/economy/russia-vodka-putin/ | title=Russia slashing vodka prices as economy reels | work=CNN | date=December 31, 2014 | access-date=1 January 2015 | last=Petroff |first=Alanna}}

In December 2016, 78 people in Irkutsk died in a mass methanol poisoning.{{cite news|title=In Russia, Dozens Dies After Drinking Alcohol Substitute|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/world/europe/russia-bath-lotion-deaths.html|first=Ivan|last=Nechepurenko|newspaper=The New York Times|date=19 December 2016|access-date=19 December 2016}} Medvedev reacted by calling for a ban on non-traditional alcoholic liquids like the bath lotion involved in this case, stating that "it's an outrage, and we need to put an end to this".{{cite news|url=https://www.apnews.com/c0c419587e7d44ec8a6c6ac2685b8f2a/Alcohol-poisoning-death-toll-in-Russian-city-rises-to-48|title=Alcohol poisoning death toll in Russian city rises to 49|first=Vladimir|last=Isachenkov|newspaper=Associated Press|date=2016-12-19|access-date=2016-12-19}}

In 2020 officials discussed raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21.{{cite web |work=The Drinks Business |first=Edith |last=Hancock |title=Russia's health minister wants to raise legal drinking age to 21|date=14 May 2020|url=https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2020/05/russias-health-minister-wants-to-raise-legal-drinking-age-to-21/|access-date=2020-11-27|language=en-US}}

The main issue with Russian alcohol consumption patterns was the high consumption of spirits (such as vodka).{{cite book |doi=10.13140/2.1.1452.9600 |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/32754260 |year=2008 |last1=Korotayev |first1=Andrey |last2=Khalturina |first2=Darya |chapter=Russian Demographic Crisis in Cross-National Perspective |title=Russia and Globalization: Identity, Security, and Society in an Era of Change |location=Baltimore |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press }}{{cite journal | url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18662923/ | pmid=18662923 | year=2008 | last1=Khaltourina | first1=D. A. | last2=Korotayev | first2=A. V. | title=Potential for alcohol policy to decrease the mortality crisis in Russia | journal=Evaluation & the Health Professions | volume=31 | issue=3 | pages=272–281 | doi=10.1177/0163278708320160 | s2cid=21990994 }} High volumes of alcohol consumption had serious negative effects on Russia's social fabric and brought political, economic and public health ramifications. It was repeatedly listed as a major national problem.{{cite news |title=Each of 7 million Russian alcoholics drinks 27 liters of alcohol a year |newspaper=Pravda |date=November 9, 2006 |url=http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/09-11-2006/85432-alcoholism-0}} Studies showed that alcohol was a leading cause of death, especially for working-age men. In some cases, half of the men in this age group died because of alcohol-related problems.

To combat this, Russia raised taxes on alcohol, especially for vodka, using a minimum unit tax. Russia also introduced new laws restricting when and where alcohol could be sold. These policies have resulted in a considerable fall of alcohol consumption volumes. According to a 2011 report by the World Health Organization, annual per capita consumption of alcohol in Russia was about 15.76 litres of pure alcohol, the fourth-highest volume in Europe.{{cite web | url=https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/msbgsruprofiles.pdf | title=Global stat| date=2011 | access-date=February 26, 2016}} It dropped to 13.5 litres by 2013 and 11.7 litres in 2016,{{cite web |url=https://journal.tinkoff.ru/drunkards/ |title=Россияне и алкоголь |lang=ru |trans-title=Russians and alcohol |publisher=Journal.tinkoff.ru |date=21 October 2019 |access-date=2022-04-13}} dropping further to about 10.5 litres in 2019.{{Cite web |date=September 20, 2021 |title=Alcohol, total per capita (15+) consumption (in litres of pure alcohol) (SDG Indicator 3.5.2) |url=https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/total-(recorded-unrecorded)-alcohol-per-capita-(15-)-consumption |access-date=November 30, 2022 |website=WHO Global Health Observatory}} with wine and beer overtaking spirits as the main source of beverage alcohol. These levels are comparable with European Union averages. Alcohol-related deaths in Russia have dropped dramatically year over year falling to 6,789 in 2017 from 28,386 in 2006 and continuing to decline into 2018.{{cite web|url=https://www.fedstat.ru/indicator/33559|script-title=ru:Число зарегистрированных умерших по основным классам и отдельным причинам смерти (оперативные данные)|language=ru|trans-title=Number of registered deaths by main classes and individual causes of death (operational data)|publisher=Rosstat|access-date=2018-11-27|archive-date=2018-03-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180326211505/https://www.fedstat.ru/indicator/33559|url-status=dead}} However, binge drinking levels remain elevated compared to other countries in the WHO Eastern European Region.{{rp|9}}

Another issue was illegal and homemade alcohol. The falling legal consumption was accompanied by growth in sales of illegally produced drink.{{cite web | url=http://rosinvest.com/acolumn/blog/alkogol/507.html | title=Анализ алкогольного рынка в 2013 году - рост и падение | publisher=RosInvest | date=March 19, 2014 | access-date=February 26, 2016}} In 2006, Russia introduced a new alcohol excise stamp known as EGAIS, identifying every bottle sold in Russia through a centralized data system.{{cite news|title=Russia may soon be booze free|url=http://www.fin24.com/International/Russia-may-soon-be-booze-free-20060727|access-date=4 September 2017|work=Fin24|date=2006-07-27}}

Russia also systematically controlled information regarding alcohol. Alcohol advertisements were banned on TV, radio, and other public platforms to reduce exposure, especially for young people. Public health campaigns encouraged people to drink less and adopt healthier lifestyles. Doctors were also trained to help people struggling with alcohol addiction.

The modern mainstream treatment for alcoholism involves detailed analyses of each patient, and may include pharmacotherapy, medicinal treatment, psychotherapy, sociotherapy, and other support.{{cite book | title = Treatment systems overview | publisher = Council of Europe Publishing | location = Strasbourg | year = 2010 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=v0ZCt60i3M8C&pg=PA127 | access-date = June 14, 2011 | pages = 127–128 | isbn = 978-92-871-6930-3 }} Alcoholics Anonymous exists in Russia, but is generally dismissed by the Russian population.{{cite news |last1=Neyfakh |first1=Leon |title=Why Russia's drinkers resist AA |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/11/02/why-russia-drinkers-resist/6uJ7ugDd5H2Kko28ykXs9K/story.html |access-date=September 21, 2021 |work=The Boston Globe |date=November 3, 2013}} Disulfiram has also seen widespread use.{{cite web | url=https://www.marketplace.org/2011/03/03/killer-cure-alcoholism-russia/ | title=The killer cure for alcoholism in Russia | date=3 March 2011 |work=marketplace.org |access-date=31 August 2022 }}

One alternative therapy for alcoholism that has been used in Russia is the practice of "coding", in which therapists pretend to insert a "code" into patients' brains with the ostensible effect that drinking even small amounts of alcohol will be extremely harmful or even lethal. Despite not being recommended in Russian clinical guidelines, it has enjoyed considerable popularity. In recent years its use has lessened, due to the spread of information about its ineffectiveness.{{cite book | last = Mosher | first = Clayton | title = Drugs and Drug Policy | publisher = Sage | location = Thousand Oaks | year = 2007 | isbn = 978-0-7619-3007-5 | page = 269 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aDMvoMxx0-IC&pg=PA269 | access-date = June 9, 2011}}{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/01/AR2005100101196.html | title=Russia's 1-Step Program: Scaring Alcoholics Dry | newspaper=The Washington Post | date=October 2, 2005 | access-date=June 9, 2011 | author=Finn, Peter}}

• Russian Cross
• Vodka Belt
• List of federal subjects of Russia by incidence of substance abuse
• List of countries by alcohol consumption per capita
• Suicide in Russia
• Crime in Russia
• Domestic violence in Russia

{{reflist}}

• {{Cite book

|author =WHO

|title=WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol

|year=2004

|chapter=Country Profiles. Russian Federation

|chapter-url=https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/en/russian_federation.pdf

}}.

• {{cite journal | last1 = Jargin | first1 = SV | year = 2010 | title = On the causes of alcoholism in the former Soviet Union | journal = Alcohol and Alcoholism | volume = 45 | issue = 1| pages = 104–5 | doi=10.1093/alcalc/agp082| pmid = 19951961 | doi-access = }}

{{Alcohol by countries}}

{{Russia topics}}

{{Asia topic|Alcohol in}}

{{Europe topic|Alcohol in}}

Category:Health in Russia

Category:Alcohol abuse in Russia