Russian Drinking Problem

From NY TIMES:
IN an effort to reduce both its sky-high alcoholism rate and its budget gap, Russia recently announced plans to quadruple the tax on the country’s eternal vice, vodka, over the next three years............

Russians consume about 18 liters of pure alcohol per person a year, more than twice the internationally recommended limit, a rate that President Dmitri A. Medvedev has called a “natural disaster.” Thanks in part to lifelong heavy drinking, the life expectancy for the average Russian man is now about 60 years, just below that of Haiti. Alcohol poisoning alone kills 40,000 Russians a year (compared with about 300 in the United States), and alcohol plays a role in more than half of all premature deaths.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/opinion/17Schrad.html?src=twrhp