Russia Sets Minimum Price for Vodka

Remove all ads!

Well, if that doesn't bring down Medvedev's cabinet, nothing will .

Seriously though, I don't know how much this will impact illegal production - the illegal producers - or the shops themselves - can simply raise prices. As for reducing alcoholism - it's a worthy goal, but it will take a lot more than somewhat higher prices to tackle, at least in Russia.

 

Won't work. I think Gorbatchev tried this in the Soviet Union and it only led to the boom of distillation of illegal alcohol. Russia already has an abundance of black market vodka and this will only make matters worse. If they'd couple this with a crackdown of organized crime then they might be on to something but for some strange reason I don't see that happening.

EDIT: Interestingly enough I read an article a while back that claimed the Russian government is keeping the price of vodka down because a drunken nation is easier to lead and cares less about their freedoms, I doubt there's much into it but it was an interesting read.

 

We have the same thing here in Massachusetts, although it isn't vodka it is milk. However, we do it in some warped attempt to make sure dairy farmers make a decent living, not to discourage milk drinking.

 

The problem is the price they sell the milk, though, not the one the general public buys it. Here there were several protests by farmers last year because of the very low purchase price of their milk. It was several times lower than the one you bought it in the shops - never mind the price of good cheese or other dairy products.

 

Funny that you mentioned milk.

Here in Dalarna, Sweden, there was also an upproar over the big food markets switching from the locally produced milk from Milko to the products from the eeeeevul multi-national dairy products from Arla. It got so bad that at least one of the biggest food chains published a public apology in the local newspapers and resumed selling Milko's products.

To make matters a bit more interesting, it pays to note that Milko's dairy products are around 15-20% more expensive compared to Arla's as Milko also pays up to one swedisch crown more per liter of milk to the producers.