Alcohol is the first strike weapon. The drug on guard of the lobbyists

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

2019 in the Kemerovo region will be remembered by the introduction of a ban on the sale of alcohol on holidays. On September 11, the last non-alcoholic holiday of this year is coming - the All-Russian Day of Sobriety. 11 September - Day of Sobriety.

Kuzbass occupies an unenviable 65th place in the national rating of sobriety. The well-known Novokuznetsk public figure Gennady Kupavtsev, who was at the origins of the Sober Kuzbass movement, spoke about whether bans help in getting rid of alcohol addiction.

Who gets drunk more often

Anna Ivanova, "AiF in Kuzbass": In our society there is no unequivocally negative attitude towards alcohol. On the one hand, people recognize that drunkenness is evil, a bad habit, a disease. On the other hand, very few people will refuse a glass of alcohol at the festive table. Gennady Stepanovich, how do you feel about alcohol?

Gennady Kupavtsev

Gennady Kupavtsev: For me, the only correct definition of alcohol, or ethyl alcohol, is given in the GOST 1972: it refers to potent drugs that first cause excitement, then paralysis of the nervous system. In 1988, this definition was changed - otherwise how can the state legally sell drugs? Words can be rewritten, but the pharmacological properties of this muck have not changed: as it was addictive to it, it remains.

According to statistics, people die from all illegal drugs less often than from one legal one - alcohol. Every year I request data from the Novokuznetsk forensic medical examination bureau. In 2017, 145 people died from ethyl alcohol poisoning, and 43 people died from drug overdose - three times less. More than half of the murders are committed in alcoholic intoxication, the same picture in accidents.

- There was a strong student company. They walked together, got married, celebrated family holidays, the birth of children. But at some point, everyone began to notice that one of the friends began to drink more and more. He was kicked out of his job, his wife left … There are many such fates. Who gets drunk more often?

- As a rule, the best drink too much. If a person is a bastard, he is not invited to the company. And if he is an accordion player, as it used to be in the village, the soul of the company, a poet, an artist (Vysotsky, Mironov or Papanov), they call him everywhere, sit at the table, pour.

Run away from the place where you are served.

There are two reasons why people drink too much. The first is biological: ten people drank the same, and two were under the table. Because in the majority in the body, the enzymes responsible for the breakdown of the alcoholic molecule are normal, and in those two, they are underestimated (this is the case for the peoples of the North, first of all).

And the second reason is the microsocial environment, the team that surrounds you every day. I myself have been in such a situation. Male team: in the morning you come to work, and there someone, like me, is sick with a hangover. We went to the pub across the street, and so every day. It lasted two years, there was no strength to stop.

I decided: I must break free. He quit, got a job in a women's team, where there were no drunks. So he saved himself from alcoholism and falling into a pit. Therefore, I say to everyone: "Run away from the place where you are tempted every day, break these ties."

Sometimes they prohibit, sometimes they lobby

- In the national rating of sobriety, our region is in 65th place. And the Novosibirsk region, for example, is on the 18th, the Krasnoyarsk Territory - on the 30th. Why is the level of alcoholization of the population in Kuzbass higher than in neighboring regions?

- I think Kadyrov's situation is best of all: he has a sober territory, because in Chechnya they sell alcohol for only two hours a day. And what kind of a struggle for sobriety can there be if the former governor openly supported the alcohol business?

Some houses have three pubs. Did they get in there themselves? No, the authorities allowed it. Tsivilev spoke out against pubs, but I still do not understand whether he is promoting himself on this problem or is it his inner state.

Much depends on the authorities, as we see following the example of Kadyrov. In our city, with the arrival of Kuznetsov, the administration stopped coordinating the "Russian jogging" of our society, and this was a visual propaganda of a sober lifestyle. Moreover, if 35 people participated in the first run, then in the subsequent ones the number of participants reached 150. I think the authorities were simply frightened of this teetotal movement, which is gaining popularity.

- But in recent years, serious restrictions on the sale of alcohol have been introduced in the country, the police are issuing huge fines to retail outlets selling alcohol to minors …

- On the one hand, bans are being introduced. On the other hand, the Minister of Sports made sure that during the World Cup it was allowed to trade in beer at the stadiums. Now the new minister is seeking a complete lifting of this ban. At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade comes up with an initiative to remove beer from the restrictions on alcoholic beverages. After all, this is a return to the past: beer will be equated with soda and will again be sold everywhere.

Accessibility is one of the key factors in the alcoholization of the people

They make awesome money on alcohol; in its production, the profit rate is more than 1000%! Marx is credited with saying: if the rate of profit is 300%, then there is no such crime that capital would not go. And here 1000%! And the capital does not care about you, me, our children and all the crimes that are committed under the influence of alcohol. Our task is to stop this alcoholic mafia, whose interests are lobbied by some officials and deputies.

- Under Gorbachev's "dry law", cognac was hidden in teapots at weddings, and now, at graduation, wine is poured into tetrapaks from juice. It would seem that these prohibitions are introduced for the good of the people, but the people do not accept them and come up with loopholes. Why is this happening?

- Because there is no system. We are sometimes shown certain events as proof that a struggle is being waged. And it is, they say, ineffective, and people grumble. They introduced a rule: do not trade in alcohol on holidays. I am for. But this is a half-hearted measure. Why only on holidays? In addition to prohibitions, there should be propaganda. If people do not explain why everything is being done, there will be internal resistance.

What kind of propaganda do we have? After all, there is not a single feature film about the benefits of a sober life. Heroes drink and they are successful. And they would show the opposite dynamics: how a person loses his family, business, how he becomes a homeless person. But this is not the case.

I think this information should be carried through television and schools. At the local level, we tried to establish a system, offered to invite specialists to give lectures to teachers. For schoolchildren, the former head of the education department even agreed on a list of anti-alcohol-themed films to be shown on classroom hours. But these undertakings have not been continued. Yes, now we are sometimes allowed into schools and technical schools with lectures, but this, I think, is not enough.

- Sergey Tsivilev came up with an initiative to completely ban the sale of beer in residential buildings. How effective will this ban be and will there be new loopholes?

- It's high time to do it. Well, what is a pub in a residential building, where every day they yell, shit in the porches and create a criminal environment? Beer is a first-strike weapon, and addiction begins with it. This is where the anti-alcohol fight should begin. At the dawn of their activity, back in the USSR, I remember, they opened a wine and vodka in the house on the site of a grocery store. I say to one old woman: “Now they will shit. Let me write a letter, and you collect the signatures of the tenants. So they did, took the letter to the newspaper - and closed this store.

Are young people getting sober?

- Alcohol bans are being introduced. Do they have any effect?

- In 192595% of young people under 18 were teetotalers. This was a generation raised on dry law that lasted 11 years. And in 1985, as a result of the introduction of a "culture of moderate drinking" at the state level, 95% of high school students drank alcohol.

Several years ago we conducted a survey in Novokuznetsk schools: about half of high school students did not drink alcohol and were not going to do so. I am inclined to associate this with the fact that anti-alcohol information has become more accessible. Compared to the Soviet period, now there is a powerful independent information resource - the Internet. This is the instrument with which our teetotal information reaches, first of all, the youth.

- According to the forensic medical examination data that you have, from 2006 to 2017. the number of alcohol poisoning has more than halved. Is this also the result of bans and propaganda?

- Undoubtedly. The fashion for a healthy lifestyle also gives its fruits - young people are fond of street workout, skiing, snowboarding, bicycles. To be fair, I should note the significantly increased number of vehicles, and this is a powerful deterrent. Therefore, in the wake of these positive trends, I consider it my duty to prevent beer from returning to stadiums and removing it from the category of alcohol. After all, accessibility is one of the key factors in the alcoholization of the people.