Soviet Union: Drying Out in Moscow

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Soviet citizens barely had time last week to react to rare television footage of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev mingling with people on the streets of Leningrad, trading one-liners and urging greater work discipline, when they were asked to digest another, more jarring piece of news: a sweeping crackdown on a national pastime -- drinking. The decree raises the drinking age from 18 to 21, delays the daily opening of liquor stores by three hours, calls for a gradual cut in vodka production and an eventual ban on port, which the Soviets consume in huge quantities. The measure also prescribes harsh penalties for drunken driving, drinking in public, serving alcohol to minors and brewing moonshine.

The crackdown hardly came as a surprise. In recent months the Soviet press has been railing against alcohol abuse and condemning the country's passion for vodka, or, as Soviets often call it, the green serpent, for the creature it can evoke. Excessive drinking is described as the leading cause of divorce, violent crime and accidental death. Soviet statistics also suggest that alcohol abuse is the main reason that male life expectancy, which is on the rise in all other industrialized nations, has dropped from 67 years to 62 over the past 20 years. Says a Western diplomat based in Moscow: "It's a tough problem, and I think (the Soviets) are trying to tackle it in an intelligent way."