Dr. Sarath OBEYSEKERA

April 21, 2020, 11:35 pm 

When I read the above article I recollected experience about an incident 1972 in Russia

I was sent to an industrial site in a City called Orenburg in Russia with about 40 male and female students who were doing a major degree with me in Drilling and Exploration equipment for Oil and Gas

This city was full of hardcore Heafty Russians treated this brown-skinned small man and drank vodka quite often with a chaser  of dried pig fat or raw dried fish 

Whole city administration collected money from shops in the corporate bank in the government-controlled economy to pay salaries to workers in the city. Most of the money collected is from Gastronom where they sell liquor – staple booze Stoleeshnaya Vodka 

The provincial state wanted to curtail liquor consumption and decided  not to sell vodka for the last week of the month in summer

Money did not come to the bank and there were no funds to pay salaries 

I assume that they hurriedly brought the money from another oblast and managed to pay a few days late ( obviously without printing!)

The funniest part is that all  the  perfume bottles sold in shops were grabbed by suffering workers to satisfy their unbearable thirst  Orenburg never tried that method anymore 

My fear is that illegal liquor making is cracked down our addicts will resort to drinking something else  like thinner used in paint 

Later I worked in the Norwegian oil sector and all my colleagues had an illicit winemaking distillery in the basement which is illegal in Norway and Finland where liquor prices were highest in the region 

Norsk government kept blind eye though it is illegal considering the plight of the nation during lunch Bg severe winter 

The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA), yesterday, urged shop owners to stop the sale of cigarettes at least until the threat posed by COVID-19 was over. Secretary of the GMOA, Dr. Haritha Aluthge, issuing a media statement, commended the President for reversing the decision to open liquor stores.”The decision taken by the Commissioner-General of Excise to open bars was a mistake and we opposed that on Monday itself.

This was also a decision that was against our recommendations, to control the spread of COVID-19.”He said the GMOA had opposed the sale of liquor, during COVID-19 crisis, due to four main reasons: intoxicated people will not maintain necessary distance from each other, several people gather to drink alcohol, which in turn disrupts physical distancing, police and other agencies have to deal with the issues that are created by intoxication. 

Dr Sarath Obeysekera
CEO Walkers Colombo Shipyard
Colombo
Sri Lanka