Smokers and drunkards will be cured with a ruble
Expensive hangover
The government has calculated how vodka and cigarettes will become more expensive
Philip Chapkovsky, "Russian Reporter" № 20-2011
The Ministry of Finance has published a schedule for the growth of excise taxes on "harmful products" – alcohol and cigarettes. The draft amendments to the Tax Code provide that excise taxes on vodka – and hence retail prices – will increase by an average of 30% per year, and on cigarettes – even faster.
The Ministry of Finance is no stranger to humanism or, rather, caution: by 2014, the excise tax on alcohol will increase from the current 231 rubles to 500 rubles per liter, although it was originally planned to increase it to 900 rubles, and in this case the cheapest half-liter bottle of vodka would cost no less than 400 rubles.
The initial radical plans of Kudrin's department were explained simply: Dmitry Medvedev demanded to reduce social taxes from wages, which means that money is needed to compensate for budget losses. But after the Prime Minister's angry remark: "We cannot take the burden off the business and shift it onto the shoulders of an ordinary citizen," a smoother version of the increase in excise taxes was developed.
Now the price of vodka will not grow so fast, and the main increase will be in the second half of 2012, that is, after the presidential election. Smokers, however, were not condescended to: the excise tax on cigarettes will more than triple in three years – from 280 to 1,040 rubles per thousand cigarettes. But of all the ways to compensate for budget losses invented by the Ministry of Finance, this is probably the most useful.
A recent study conducted by Irina Denisova from the Russian School of Economics showed that those who regularly consume vodka have an average life expectancy of 9-10 years less than non-drinkers. From a detailed analysis of mortality statistics in the Baltic States during the prohibition period in 1986-1988, it follows that the suicide rate with the restriction of alcohol sales is falling sharply.
For Russia, which ranks sixth in the world in terms of the number of suicides, this is a weighty argument for any policy limiting alcohol consumption. The frequency of suicides is combined with high rates of homicides and other serious crimes on domestic grounds.
The longest life expectancy and the lowest number of homicides were noted during perestroika, and most of all – in the early 1990s, when the price of strong alcohol was the lowest in the history of the country, and there was no control over "burnt" vodka and the sale of low-quality alcohols.
The government's purely financial motives are behind the increase in excise taxes on vodka and tobacco. But at the same time, in our country, probably for the first time in its history, a situation has arisen where the state actually depends very little on vodka as a source of income. Hence, there are fewer risks and the possibility of a more rational policy.
The writer Nikolai Leskov once told how exactly the state created a vodka monopoly in the time of Ivan the Terrible and forced "to hand over the plan" for alcohol collections of specially appointed people – kissers. They were obliged to carry out the plan on pain of death penalty, and according to the report of one of them, "rejoicing about the sovereign's good, he hung up and laughed at those bad pitukhs for drinking, and those who persisted appeared, not sparing those and did not fight."
For 400 years, little has changed in Russia. Gorbachev was forced to go on an anti-alcohol campaign not for ideological reasons, but because of the enormously increased mortality from alcohol and a decrease in life expectancy. But the state itself was alcohol-dependent: oil revenues were falling, and vodka became one of the main and most reliable sources of money, accounting for 24% of the total turnover of the USSR. Former chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee N. Baibakov recalled: "At the meeting I cautiously warned: comrades, take your time – we will unbalance the budget. After all, we are still talking about 25 billion rubles." And the budget was indeed unbalanced by the simultaneous fall in oil prices and the decline in legal alcohol sales.
Now the budget is much less dependent on tobacco and alcohol: in 2010 they accounted for no more than 3% of state revenues. The losses incurred by the economy from the early deaths and diseases caused by them are much greater. In addition, it has already become clear that prices cope with bad habits more effectively than prohibitions: when the price of vodka increases by 1%, its consumption decreases by 1.7%.
But there is also a socio-political component of the problem. Premature mortality, domestic homicides and suicides are a consequence not only of excessive alcohol consumption, but also of social disorder in general. And cheap vodka not only aggravates depression, but also translates social aggression from anti–government forms into suicidal ones, from rebellion to binge drinking. Fears of the growth of "sober" social discontent force the state to act very carefully. And, of course, any anti-alcohol measures bring to mind the odious Gorbachev's prohibition.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru27.05.2011