What the hell?

medicinal purposes of vodka

i'm left thinking for some as i let the vodka tonic i just consumed settle in.

sweet jesus. perhaps it was the sangria prep that did me in.
(but who's complaining?)

I don't know if the following URL will allow anyone to view...it's a wsj piece on how the russians are cracking down on public consumption of vodka.
no more street boozing. (if you want to read it and can't i can forward a url that doesn't require login)

When i first caught the article, i was shocked they actually had a statistic on the number of russians that die a year from drinking fake vodka.

Ah ha! the number is 37,000.

I wonder what other governements, if any, keep track of similar stats.

Two notable lines

Such high-mindedness has a precedent. In the mid-1980s, the Soviets tried to fight rampant alcoholism by curbing the production and sale of spirits. Vineyards were bulldozed and vodka distilleries closed. But the policy largely failed: Hardened drinkers brewed moonshine or switched to dangerous surrogates like cologne and bug spray

and

The young people who crowd Moscow's squares guzzle beer, often sold in two-liter plastic bottles, the way teens in the West drink soda.

beer isn't considered an alcholic beverage. perhaps that explains the 8% beer i consumed the other night.

shh.

posted by irene @ 10/12/2004 10:31:00 PM