LOCAL

Nathan Toohey

Russia's anti-alcohol crusade passed an important milestone on Friday with President Dmitry Medvedev putting his signature on a laundry list of plans to fight excessive alcohol consumption.

The list of proposals, which was prepared at a government meeting in Sochi in August, foresees a range of measures. Among these are reducing the threshold for "low alcohol" beverages to 7 per cent, and restricting the retail sale of low-alcohol drinks to containers of not more than 330 millilitres.

All booze packaging would be required to carry a health warning occupying no less than 20 per cent of the package's total surface area.

Further changes would see a tightening of the rules concerning the advertising of drinks containing more than 5 per cent alcohol and their sale from kiosks and similar points would be banned.

Russia's regions would be granted the power to restrict where, when and how alcoholic beverages were sold, including the power to completely ban retail sales. The penalties for selling to under-aged buyers would be increased.

The list of measures will now go to the government administration, which will have to submit a set of bills to the State Duma by the end of the year in order to transfer the proposals into laws.

Medvedev previously said that fighting alcoholism was a difficult matter, "but it cannot be solved with the help of stupid bans," and that the solution lay in using a wide range of modern programmes that provide for normal recreation, "allowing people to relax civilly and not simply go to a shop and buy a bottle and sit stupidly in the kitchen watching television through bloodshot eyes."